WITH RELATION TO VITALITY. 2S 



duced ; in the other, the natural actions of the 

 living system contribute to the acquisition of 

 strength. Great and striking as appear to me 

 the marks of difference by which systems, com- 

 mon and living, are characterised, all compa- 

 rison is lost, when we reflect on the imbecility 

 and passivity of the one ; on the irritability and 

 mobility, (both voluntary, involuntary, and 

 mixed of the other,) with the power of abstrac- 

 tion, and of ratiocination of some ; of reproduc- 

 tion and restoration of all. If the food be 

 examined which subserves to supply the wants, 

 and to restore the wastes which every living 

 system undergoes, it will be found in its at- 

 tributes to be totally different from what it 

 was before. The commutation which the 

 food has undergone, after the process of di- 

 gestion has been accomplished, is total and 

 complete. Gases are bereaved of their expan- 

 sibility, adds of their acidity, alkalies of their 

 acrimony ; all of the order of their affinities, 

 and rendered bland and mild : by them, solids 

 are liquified, liquids gelatinised and made solid; 

 things simple become compounded; such as are 

 inanimate are animated ; animated things are 

 killed and revivified ; the most sapid bodies are 

 rendered insipid; the most putrid matter is de- 

 prived of its putridity, and made antiseptic and 

 fresh; the most fresh and antiseptic is rendered 

 susceptible of undergoing the processes of pu- 



