339 



tive, viz. that life, becoming informal, allies itself with the textures, 

 and suffers changes, in agreement with relations in which the tex- 

 tures or their constituents are concerned. 



6. If any arguments may be cited in favour of this proposition, 

 they also will be short of proof, although we may perhaps say, that 

 the proposition is indicated by the following considerations: 1st, 

 elementary life has a natural relation or affiuify with the material of 

 the structure; it exists in a state of combination in the blood, and 

 requires nothing less than the operation of formal life to dissolve 

 this union; 2nd, the structures of every animal are found to contain 

 elementary life, and furnish it to plants, and to other animals. 

 Upon the first of these considerations chiefly, we may say, it is indi- 

 cated that life, when it becomes informal, unites with the organic 

 substances and materials from which it was first produced, and 

 among which it lived. Presuming, then, upon this alternative, 

 merely as one which has been said to be indicated, or which is per- 

 haps better supported than any other, the processes of the forma- 

 tion and extinction of life may be thus described. Life existing 

 formally, pervading the structures, unites its own elements, which 

 exist informally in the nutrient material. The life thus formed 

 cannot endure: and as its change or extinction cannot happen from 

 its own causes, which must be those of constitution (except indeed by 

 an internal causation of which there are no proofs), so it is necessary 

 that the conversion of the living spirit into informal life must hap- 

 pen by relation with some causes existing in its sphere. These 

 causes can be no other than those belonging to the material wbioh 

 life pervades; and the decomposition of the living, into the informal 

 spirit, happens by this agency, which must be one of affinity: thig 

 circumstance furnishes additional grounds of indication, that the 

 informal life still resides with the material fabric; which it must do, 

 unless additional acts of causatiou take place, of which we are 

 wholly destitute of proofs. 



7. But although the structures of one animal will maintain the 

 life of another, they will not maintain the life of the animal to which 

 they belong. In other words, an animal may die in four or five 

 days for want of food, although all the life which has been con- 

 sumed in that time still resides with his structures. The death of 

 an animal, under these circumstances, may happen from a deficiency 

 of blood, which is a consequence of starvation; and this deficiency 

 may, it is said, be related with the extinction of life, either in respect 

 to the quantity or the quality of the blood. A sufficient quantity 

 of blood has been supposed necessary, in order to preserve a certain 

 distension, an orgasm, as it is phrased by those who substitute 

 words for meaning, a mechanical fitness, &c. Without disputing 

 the general efficacy of this orgasm, or mechanical distention, &c. 

 it is sufficient to remark, that starvation does not produce death in 

 this way; for the quantity of blood made in four days is not equal 

 to 80 ounces, which may be lost by a man within 24 hours, and his 

 life be nevertheless preserved. We must then adopt the other al- 



