176 ZOOCHEMICAL PROCESSES. 



seed is surrounded by substances whose molecular arrangement 

 may be disturbed by a slight impulse, and made to undergo 

 metamorphosis. By a slight transposition of its atoms, or by the 

 elimination or absorption of water, the starch of the cotyledons is 

 very readily converted into bodies bearing very little resemblance 

 to itself, but most extensively diffused through the vegetable king- 

 dom, as, for instance, into gum, mucilaginous matter, cane and 

 grape sugar, cellulose, &c. The white of egg is in like manner 

 capable of undergoing the most various alterations without losing 

 the most essential atoms of its constituents ; albumen, the first 

 and most important of animal substances, is a perfect Proteus in 

 its metamorphoses, assuming the most singular forms both in 

 animal and vegetable bodies ; yet we everywhere meet with the 

 same groups of atoms, although the molecular arrangement is 

 constantly changing in order to invest them with different physical 

 and even chemical qualities; and thus chemistry has hitherto failed 

 in tracing the molecular motions of albumen in all its forms. 

 Nature has surrounded the germ with variable substances such as 

 these, whose molecular structure has so unstable a centre of 

 gravity that whenever the slightest motion occurs in it, it readily 

 extends to the other molecular masses ; nature has, therefore, 

 surrounded the mysterious source of life with substances which 

 readily admit of being drawn into its current. Are we to believe 

 that vital force resides in the germinating seed for the purpose of 

 fabricating sugar from starch ? or that the impulse of chemico- 

 vital motion is propagated to the oscillating molecules, because we 

 can communicate such an impulse to starch within a digesting flask 

 as to change the grouping of the molecules, and alter the direction 

 of their centre of gravity ? The latter view, at any rate, fur- 

 nishes some explanation of these processes, and is supported by 

 numerous analogies, whilst the former is a mere ideal mystification 

 of a simple fact obvious to the unaided senses. It would appear 

 as if all the starch and all the albumen were drawn into the move- 

 ment of germ-life before the stream of life had acquired sufficient 

 force to increase its own mass by incorporating other molecular 

 parts having a more stable centre of gravity. It is now only that 

 the quantity of chemico-vital motion seems sufficiently great to 

 impart to bodies having a more stable equilibrium a motion which 

 is then regulated by physical and vital laws. The accession of 

 new matter to the moved mass does not diminish the velocity 

 of vital motion ; the whole quantity of the motion is increased ; 

 for the destruction of the chemical masses which previously rested 

 upon a solid basis gives occasion to a new impulse and to 



