24 LIFE AND DEATH. 



pendent existence; it lives and works for itself. 

 No doubt it shares in the activity of the whole, but 

 it may be separated therefrom without being thereby 

 placed in the category of dead substances. For each 

 aliquot part of the organism there is a partial life and 

 a partial death. 



This decentralization of the vital activity is finally 

 extended in complex beings from the organs to the 

 tissues, and from the tissues to the anatomical 

 elements — the cells. The idea of decentralization 

 has given birth to the second form of vitalism, a 

 softened down and weakened form — namely, pluri- 

 vitalism, or the theory of vital properties. 



§ 2. The Theory of Vital Properties. 



The advocates of the theory of vital properties have 

 cut up into fragments the monistic and indivisible 

 guiding principle of Bordeu and Barthez. They have 

 given it new currency — pluri-vitalism. This theory 

 maintains the existence of spiritual powers of a lowibr 

 order, which control phenomena more intimately than 

 the vital principle did. These powers, less lofty in 

 their dignity than the rational soul of the animists, or 

 the soul of secondary majesty of the unitarian 

 vitalists, are eventually incorporated in the living 

 matter of which they will then be no longer more 

 than the properties. Brought into closer connection 

 therefore with the sensible world, they will be more 

 in harmony with the spirit of research and with 

 scientific progress. 



The defect of the earlier conceptions, their common 

 illusion, rose from their seeking the cause outside the 



