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15. We will suppose a time when the animal system is at rest* 

 possessed and actuated only by the organic life: the senses also may 

 not just then be taking cognizance of the objects which surround 

 them; but the mind might be associating, or engaged on past im- 

 pressions, as in a reverie : on a sudden the report of a pistol is heard, 

 the man starts up; what is this process] Properties Constituting 

 the sense of hearing are changed, modified, or affected, According 

 to their relation with the report of the pistol. The brain, Before 

 independent of the properties of the auditory sense, is now affecied 

 by them ; that is, a relation is opened or exhibited which is de- 

 pendent upon the change (or disturbance) produced in one sphere of 

 connected properties. To proceed: the muscles of the .leg, before 

 quiescent, and their state independent of the brain, now assume 

 actions corresponding with the relations of their properties with the 

 present, the changed, condition of the brain. The man starts on his 

 feet, rushes into an adjoining room, and, by a similar series to that 

 just described, engages in all the complicated re-agencies of proper- 

 ties incident perhaps to a contest for life. These illustrations are 

 sufficiently numerous: to subjoin then the principle, the proofs of 

 which are before stated, and these examples are not designed as 

 proofs, but are introduced chiefly for the purpose of illustration, 

 and in order to shew their conformity. 



16. The organic life is every where an assemblage or combina- 

 tion of properties, making an assimilating principle, the identity of 

 which is the result, or settlement of that progressive causation which 

 takes place among the vital properties of the ovum, and is matured 

 in the periods of uterine growth. In almost every seat, the proper- 

 ties of the organic life are different and peculiar; their differences 

 may arise from the relations engaged in the progressive causation 

 just spoken of, and these differences, respecting only the assimilating 

 principle, are independent of any other seat; or difference, or pecu- 

 liarity, of the spirit in any seat, may arise from communications with 

 organic properties assimilated in another seat. Hence the organic 

 properties (or life) of seats, may be classed under these three divisions 

 viz. the regular assimilating, the regular dependent, and the oc- 

 casional dependent properties. The first assumed their place in the 

 processes of the development of the ovum, and they maintain them- 

 selves in their place by assimilating their own identity from arterial 

 blood ; the second do not originate in the place where their action 

 is observed, and they are not maintained in this place by assimila- 

 tion, because they are dependent upon a source; but they originate 

 in some other sphere, with which that where their action might be 

 observed is naturally and spontaneously related; the third, or oc- 

 casional dependent life, is so produced that by an influence, oc- 

 casioning change in the properties of one seat, the distant related 

 ones may be also changed, arid re-act upon the properties of the 

 seat where the affection or impression (if it is more intelligible) com- 

 menced. The first is displayed in all the stages of foptal growth ; 

 of the second there are many examples iu the latter stages of foetal 



