WITH RELATION TO VITALITY. 37 



this one substance may be in harmony with the 

 system at large, and fitted to be acted upon by 

 the particular power of the different organs, 

 into various forms. When the assimilating or- 

 gans, therefore, perform their functions with 

 force and with efficacy, they possess the power 

 of changing and of destroying the sensible and 

 chemical qualities of the substance they receive; 

 they not only possess the power to act, but to 

 resist action ; to change things external to 

 themselves, without being changed by external 

 things ; to cotivert them, instead of being con- 

 verted by them. 



The matter, therefore, which every living 

 system receives for its nourishment and sup- 

 port, can only arise out of its aptitude, and its 

 aptitude proceed from its imbecility and weak- 

 ness ; from its state of disorganisation and 

 deprivation, total and complete. It is while it 

 subsists in this weak and destitute condition, 

 with relation to the power of a living system, 

 that, I say, matter is a mere tabula rasa, in all 

 its parts a chaos of power and of intelligencies 

 altogether void ; as imbecil and inert, as the 

 shoe without the foot, or, as the musical instru- 

 ment without the art or power of the musician. 

 It bears the same relation of weakness to the 

 power of the organ, as the un colored paper on 

 which I write, does to the letter I am now 

 writing ; or, as the block does to the statue. 



