SLOW COMBUSTION. 397 



oxygen gas, arid, unless some peculiar conditions arc in 

 some way brought about, no change will take place ; 

 but, if it were possible to apply the spark of life to it, 

 as we light up the spark in the other case, or if, as that 

 is beyond the power of man, we substitute a living 

 creature, a combination between the carbon of the 

 animal and the gas will immediately begin, and carbonic 

 acid will be formed by the waste of animal matter, as 

 in the other case it is by the destruction of the carbon ; 

 and, if there is not a fresh supply given, the animal 

 must die, from the exhaustion of its fabric. Now, in 

 both these cases 5 it is clear that, although this chemical 

 union is a proximate cause of heat, there must be 

 existing some power superior to it, as the ultimate cause 

 thereof. 



The slow combustion (eremacausis) of vegetable 

 matter, decomposing under the influence of moisture 

 and the air, does not present similar conditions to those 

 of the human body, although it has been insisted upon 

 to be in every respect analogous. That the results 

 resemble each other is true, but we must carefully dis- 

 tinguish between effects and causes ; and the results of 

 chemical decomposition in inert matter differ from those 

 in the living organism. The vegetable matter has lost 

 the principle of organic life, and, that gone, the tendency 

 of all things being to be resolved into their most simple 

 forms, a disunion of the elements commences : oxygen, 

 hydrogen, and carbon pass off either in the gaseous 

 state or as water, whilst some carbon is liberated in a 

 very finely-divided condition, and enters slowly into 

 combination with oxygen supplied by the water or the 

 air. Hydrogenous compounds are at the same time 

 formed, and, under all these circumstances, as in all 

 other chemical phenomena, an alteration of temperature 

 results. Heat results from the chemical changes, and 

 eventually time combustion begins. 



The animal tissue may act in the same way as platina 



