EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 53 



ately called forth by the application of the par- 

 ticular substances which they require, and on 

 which their powers can be properly exerted. 

 The power, therefore, is resident within ; the 

 means by which the power is called forth into 

 energy comes from without ; the result of which 

 is, the production of organic action; the action 

 produced, is not the cause of life, as has been 

 falsely and erroneously supposed, but merely 

 an effect of it. Life, as we have seen before, 

 may, and does actually subsist without organic 

 action, although organic action cannot subsist 

 without the existence Oi* life : life had a prior 

 subsistence to the organisation, and organisa- 

 tion itself to the action produced : life is the 

 primary and efficient cause, of which organisa- 

 tion is the secondary and instrumental cause, 

 and organic action itself is thefinal cause. Phy- 

 sical causes, therefore, may be divided into 

 two kinds; first, into primary, or efficient 

 causes, as the great first cause, and the princi- 

 ples of intellect and of life, which impresses 

 motion on matter, the passive recipient of a fo- 

 reign impulse.* Secondly, into instrumental, 



* A final cause, on the contrary, consists in the moral mo- 

 tive upon the mind, and which can have no influence, but on a 

 Being that proposes to itself an end, for the action it performs, 

 chuses means, and thus puts itself in action : although a me- 

 chanical force, and a moral motive are both causes, they de- 

 rive iheir energy from most opposite principles. 



