DEGREE OF LIFE VARIES AS DEGREE OF CORRESPONDENCE. 107 



which have to correspond with them. So that throughout, 

 the correspondence of the internal relations with the external 

 ones is the essential thing; and all the special characteristics 

 of the internal relations, are but the collateral results of this 

 correspondence. 



35, 30. Before closing the chapter, it will be useful to 

 compare the definition of Life here set forth, with the defini 

 tion of Evolution set forth in First Principles. Living 

 bodies being bodies which display in the highest degree the 

 structural changes constituting Evolution; and Life being 

 made up of the functional changes accompanying these 

 structural changes; we ought to find a certain harmony 

 between the definitions of Evolution and of Life. Such a 

 harmony is not wanting. 



The first distinction we noted between the kind of change 

 shown in Life, and other kinds of change, was its serial 

 character. We saw that vital change is substantially unlike 

 non-vital change, in being made up of successive changes. 

 Now since organic bodies display so much more than inor 

 ganic bodies those continuous differentiations and integrations 

 which constitute Evolution; and since the re-distributions of 

 matter thus carried so far in a comparatively short period, 

 imply concomitant re-distributions of motion ; it is clear that 

 in a given time, organic bodies must undergo changes so 

 comparatively numerous as to render the successiveness of 

 their changes a marked characteristic. And it will follow a 

 priori, as we found it to do a posteriori, that the organisms 

 exhibiting Evolution in the highest degree, exhibit the 

 longest or the most rapid successions of changes, or 

 both. Again, it was shown that vital change is dis 



tinguished from non-vital change by being made up of many 

 simultaneous changes ; and also that creatures possessing high 

 vitality are marked off from those possessing low vitality, by 

 the far greater number of their simultaneous changes. Here, 

 too, there is entire congruity. In First Principles, 156, we 



