60 THE DATA OF BIOLOGY. 



Sclielling said that Life is the tendency to individuation. 

 This formula, until studied, conveys little meaning. But it 

 needs only to consider it as illustrated by the facts of develop 

 ment, or by the contrasts between lower and higher forms of 



t/ O 



life, to recognize its value ; especially in respect of compre 

 hensiveness. As before shown, however, (First Principles, 

 56), it is objectionable, partly on the ground that it refers, 

 not so much to the functional changes constituting Life, as to 

 the structural changes of those aggregations of matter which 

 manifest Life ; and partly on the ground that it includes 

 under the idea Life, much that we usually exclude from it : 

 for instance crystallization. 



The definition of Richerand, &quot; Life is a collection of 

 phenomena which succeed each other during a limited time 

 in an organized body,&quot; is liable to the fatal criticism, that 

 it equally applies to the decay which goes on after death. 

 For this, too, is &quot; a collection of phenomena which succeed 

 each other during a limited time in an organized body.&quot; 



&quot; Life,&quot; according to De Blainville, &quot; is the two-fold 

 internal movement of composition and decomposition, at once 

 general and continuous.&quot; This conception is in some re 

 spects too narrow, and in other respects too wide. On the 

 one hand, while it expresses what physiologists distinguish as 

 vegetative life, it excludes those nervous and muscular 

 functions which form the most conspicuous and distinctive 

 classes of vital phenomena. On the other hand, it describes 

 not only the integrating and disintegrating. processes going on 

 in a living body, but it equally well describes those going on 

 in a galvanic battery ; which also exhibits a &quot; two-fold in 

 ternal movement of composition and decomposition, at once 

 general and continuous.&quot; 



Elsewhere, I have myself proposed to define Life as &quot; the 

 co-ordination of actions ; &quot; * and I still incline towards this de 

 finition as one answering to the facts with tolerable precision. 



*See Westminster Review for April, 1852. Art. IV. &quot;A Theory of Popu 

 lation.&quot; 



