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7. As we see that life would become extinct but for the sup- 

 port and renovation of its elements, and as we see that these ele- 

 ments require the presence of life, in order that they also might 

 become life; we must infer that the influence of life, in regard to 

 the substances which contain its elements, is to unite these ele- 

 ments, by which they in turn become life, and an uniting principle 

 in regard to other materials. 



8. It is proved by the necessity of the frequent renewal, or 

 rather the constant supply of its materials, that a given quantity 

 of life is no sooner formed than it passes away ; that is, this portion 

 dies, or changes its forra and relations: what becomes of it will 

 be considered hereafter. 



9. Hence it follows, that the duration of life is not dependent 

 upon the sum of the principle, whether conferred on the ovum or 

 collected in the stages of growth, for then it would not stand in, 

 need of the support of external causes. 



10. Nor is it to be imagined that life is maintained by a pro- 

 cess of constitution of the following kind, viz. that a principle 

 which is a mere pre-disposition to life is originally conferred, 

 which is permanent, and the portions of which are made life by 

 the combination with an influence from the externals, air and food. 

 This is not to be imagined: 1st, because there is an entire want of 

 evidence for the truth of such a conjecture; 2nd, if a durable 

 quantity of such a principle were conferred, an animal that died 

 from privation of the mere auxiliaries of this principle, viz. from 

 the privation of air and food (or blood), should be revived by a 

 restoration of these only concurrent means, which a permanent 

 principle of pre-disposition wanted only to become life. But we 

 find, on the contrary, that to preserve life, requires the presence of 

 no single properly of life, but of the living state; and this living 

 state ceases altogether upon the privation of the means before- 

 mentioned. Such a doctrine as expressed in the above conjecture 

 is by these facts irrefragably confuted; and by them it is proved 

 with equal force and clearness, that the following is the true pro- 

 cess of the maintenance of life. 



11. Thf- piincip/e of life, or, as we have hitherto expressed it, 

 the organic spirit, exisls in every part of the textures. Blood, con- 

 taining the elements of life, which are furnished by its two sources 

 before named, viz. air and food, is every where diffused among the 

 textures. The exposure of that which contains the elements of life, 

 to life itself, is in this way complete. The next operation is simply 

 this: that life, by an affinity subsisting between itself and its ele- 

 ments, separates them from a common material, and unites them. 



12. In this manner the life contained in the blood, in the 

 condition of latent properties, becomes by a common act of causation 

 the form of life, resembling that which produces it. As every 

 quantum of the principle is produced, it operates upon the ele- 

 ments (or unites them) for its renewal and it vanishes, successive 

 quantities in this way perpetuating the existence of the living spirit. 



