2 CONNEXION OF ORGANIZATION WITH THE IMPONDERABLES. 



that which connects the production and phenomena of organized beings with the im- 

 ponderable principles. 



3. In this work the existence of the Vital Force of physiologists as a homogeneous 

 and separate force is uniformly denied. The progress of science shows plainly that 

 living structures, far from being the product of one such homogeneous power, are rather 

 the resultants of the action of a multitude of natural forces. Gravity, cohesion, elasti- 

 city, the agency of the imponderables, and all other powers which operate both on 

 masses and atoms, are called into action, and hence it is that the very evolution of a 

 living form depends on the condition that all these various agents conspire. There is 

 no mystery in animated beings which time will not at last reveal. It is astonishing 

 that, in our days, the ancient system, which excludes all connexion with natural phi- 

 losophy and chemistry, and depends on the fictitious aid of a visionary force, should 

 continue to exist : a system which, at the outset, ought to have been broken down by 

 the most common considerations, such as those connected with the mechanical princi- 

 ples involved in the bony skeleton, the optical principles in the construction of the eye, 

 or the hydraulic action of the valves of the heart. 



4. In their origin, all those important ideas which now constitute modern science 

 have been obscurely and imperfectly set forth. It is not given to the human mind, 

 when it emerges from the darkness of ignorance, any more than to the human eye, 

 when it emerges from physical darkness into the sunshine, to see all objects which are 

 before it in their proper aspect and position. A period of time must elapse, during 

 which we become accustomed to the light. Future discovery, in its progress, may 

 show that, of the facts brought forward in this volume, many are misplaced, and many 

 misapplied ; these are incidents to which all philosophical works are liable. But if it 

 should happen that anything contained herein shall aid in fastening the attention of 

 men of science on the idea which it is designed to impart, the author will have received 

 his reward, and the labours of ten years will not have been entirely thrown away. 



5. Organized beings and organized bodies spring forth in those positions only to 

 which the rays of the sun have access. They are, therefore, limited to the atmosphere, 

 the sea, and the surface of the earth. Periodical vicissitudes, which are observed both 

 in vegetables and in animals, serve to show that this is not a mere fortuitous coinci- 

 dence, but rather an intimate connexion between the phenomena of life and the pres- 

 ence of the imponderables. When the sun is set, the leaves of plants no longer decom- 

 pose the carbonic acid of the air, but a pause takes place in the activity of their func- 

 tions, and they sink into a passive condition. The gaseous bodies brought from the 

 ground by the action of the spongioles percolate through the delicate tissues of the leaf, 

 and escape away into the atmosphere. At night, also, in many flowers, the petals fold 

 themselves together, and, for a time, all active processes cease. It is, therefore, through 

 an instinctive impulse, that comes over them during this period, that all animals, except 

 such as take their prey by night, seek places of rest. Darkness, and silence, and re- 

 pose are all connected together. 



6. It is one of the greatest discoveries of the present age, that the races of animals 

 which have inhabited our globe were of successive creation ; that they constitute a 



