METHODOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION. 23 



assume that there exists in life a higher power of the spiritual force 

 pervading matter. While, therefore,, in opposition to the views of 

 these natural philosophers, we must refer all force to matter, we 

 have no fear of degrading "vital phenomena to mere mechanical, 

 physical, and chemical processes,' 5 since our most exalted concep- 

 tion of nature and the sublimest natural philosophy emanate from 

 the very simplicity of physical laws, and the unlimited variety of 

 phenomena to which they give rise. 



We are firmly convinced that even metaphysiology will be 

 unable to deprive physiological chemistry of the consideration due 

 to it among physical studies, in its explanation of vital processes ; 

 and we will, therefore, leave it to the poetic and the imaginative to 

 depict the romance of the protecting activity and sturdy contest 

 maintained by the vital force, and of a struggle between different 

 powers, between the attraction and repulsion of polarities. Does 

 it not need a superabundant richness of fancy to believe with meta- 

 physiologists, that apparent death, trance, or (as it has been termed) 

 latent life, is the predominance of the spiritual over the material (the 

 metamorphosis of matter being at its minimum) rather than a pre- 

 dominance of the material over the spiritual, as sounder minds 

 would be led to assume ? It would be well if these spiritualists 

 would look down from the high stand they have chosen, and deign 

 to believe that there are some among those experimentalists, who, 

 clinging to matter, and gathering their facts with ant-like industry 

 from the lowly earth, notwithstanding that they have long held 

 communion with the poet-philosopher, Plato, and the philosophical 

 natural enquirer, Aristotle, and have some familiarity with the Pa- 

 raphrases of Hegel and Schelling, are yet unwilling to relinquish 

 their less elevated position. If these happy admirers of their own 

 Ideal had descended from their airy heights and closely examined 

 organic and inorganic matter, they would not have deemed it neces- 

 sary to assume, that besides carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, 

 organic substances must also contain an organogenium or latent 

 vital force, or whatever else they may be pleased to call it. Had 

 they sought information from a chemist, they would have learnt, 

 that when exposed to the clear light of rigid logic, there is no 

 essential difference between organic and inorganic bodies; a 

 chemist totally unacquainted with organic matter, would a 

 priori have deduced all these incidental differences of matter, 

 from the doctrine of affinity and the science of stoichiometry, 

 evolved from dead matter. However these advocates of a romantic 

 poetry of nature may despise the swarm of industrious investi- 



