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ternative, and say that an animal dies from starvation in the same 

 way as for want of air, viz. by the privation of a supporter of life, 

 by defect of elementary life, with however this difference, that a 

 Jarger sum of the elements of life from earth, compared with their 

 consumption, exist in the blood than of those from air; and conse- 

 quently an animal will, for a considerable time, sustain the priva- 

 tion of food, but requires incessnntly the renewal of atmospherical 

 air. But our present question is, how happens it that an animal dies 

 from defect of the external supporters of life (seeing that they are 

 only elementary till life makes them formal), when elementary or 

 informal life must every where abound ; and existing in the spheres, 

 is subject to the operation, of the living principle? 



8. The reason why the living principle does convert elemen- 

 tary into formal life in one instance, and not in another, is, that the 

 informal life of the blood is fitted for the relation with the formal 

 life which assimilates it, by the series of processes performed by the 

 preparatory organs; and the life which was elementary in the 

 blood, having become formal, again becomes elementary in conse- 

 quence of its holding a new iclation with surrounding agents; and 

 with this informal state of life the living spirit does not hold, as 

 in the case of that residing in the blood, the relation by which it is 

 assimilated. The only terms upon which the life which has been 

 formal, and has become elementary, can again be converted into 

 life are that the new combinations of it should be superseded by the 

 influence of preparatory organs, and that it should again be reduced 

 to the state of it in respect to the living spirit, in which it existed in 

 blood. So perfect is the adaptation of the preparatory organs to 

 the living principle, that no animal can be supported by means of 

 nutrition which have not passed through the organs subservient to 

 this end ; and although animals of every variety and species, and 

 perhaps vegetables, also, may be fed with a common material, yet 

 each, from the agreement between the preparatory functions and the 

 living principle, takes only those constituents which make up his 

 own identity, and hence the uniformity of their several characters is 

 preserved. 



9. We observe that the organic substances of one animal 

 furnish to the life of another those elements only which are derived 

 from the earth. In other words, the supply of external air is just as 

 necessary to the life of an animal whose food consists of the organic 

 substances which have before been the seat of animal life, as to that 

 of one whose food consists of vegetables. If, then, the life which 

 has become informal in one animal helps to constitute the life of 

 another, the elements from earth are adopted for this purpose, 

 while those of air (which must also exist in the same substances) 

 are obtained from without. This is a circumstance which may be 

 urged in objection to the theory which supposes that life, becoming 

 informal, passes into the surrounding substances, and again con- 

 tributes to identify the life of another animal, into which these sub- 

 stances might pass. But this objection may be obviated or rcu- 



