260 



law*, and in a different manner: life produces' the organization of 

 an animal, electricity has never exhibited the faintest approxima- 

 tion to such a power. Not to be tedious in enumerating diffe- 

 rences, where, in ten thousand phenomena, there are scarcely half 

 a dozen points of resemblance, and those common in a lesser de- 

 gree to other substances, it appears that in the intercourse of vital 

 properties these properties in some instances are to be reckoned 

 as mere stimuli, and produce the phenomena of a distant seat in 

 conjunction with the regular properties of such seat: to what 

 extent they are to be considered in this light, in the examples of 

 dependent life \vhether regular or occasional, is to be determined 

 by the ascertained instances in which these properties may be 

 substituted. That electricity should have an intimate relation 

 with life is not more extraordinary than that grass should furnish 

 the materials of the animal structures; but neither is grass a 

 muscle, nor is electricity life, until by causation they are dis- 

 tinguished from other forms of existence, and identified as these 

 creations. 



This section concludes our physiological sketch. The design 

 hitherto has been to shew distantly how life is maintained, and to 

 point out those particulars for further inquiry, the possession of 

 \vhich would make us almost perfect in this department of science. 

 Physiology has never been investigated with these views: the pur- 

 suit of it has turned principally on mechanical arrangement, which, 

 with respect to function, has no other importance (which indeed 

 is very considerable) than belongs to an instrumental fitness to the 

 powers by which it is actuated. The design has been to incite 

 attention to these powers, to shew that they might be reasoned 

 upon with a probability perhaps equal to that which is boasted in 

 those coarser topics which are commonly received as more level 

 to the faculties with which men are endowed. Many circum- 

 stances or particulars here unnoticed concur also with those 

 which have been spoken of in the business of the formation and 

 support of an animal body: these have their respective histories 

 and relations; to particularize which, would be very little more 

 than to swell by repetition the views, the analyses, the indications, 

 concerning which as much has been already said as is conformable 

 with a general design. The condition of life having been thus 

 faintly exhibited, it remains that we trace it in the two further 

 itages of disease and death. 



