THE CELL DOCTRINE. 113 



ing place through merely physical laws, but that there 

 is a presiding agency which controls such arrange- 

 ment to a definite end. It matters not what this is 

 called, but we prefer to designate it at present by the 

 term " vital force," or " vitality." It is this controlling 

 agency which makes all so-called vital properties es- 

 sentially different from purely physical properties, a 

 difference which, though it be denied in ivords, and ex- 

 plained away by reasoning, has the most decided proof 

 of its existence in the acknowledgment it receives in 

 the actions of men, just as the most convincing argu- 

 ment in favor of the free agency of the human mind is 

 seen in the fact, that all men shape their actions on 

 the supposition of such a freedom, whatever their 

 pretended belief with regard to it. 



That there is something in this force or power over 

 and above the physical forces of nature, is most 

 strikingly shown in the power, exhibited through its 

 agency by germinal matter, of multiplying and pro- 

 ducing new germinal matter out of pabulum unlike 

 itself. For although a crystal may result from the 

 rearrangement of particles of a salt in solution, as 

 sulphate of alumina, to an unlimited extent, there is 

 no possibility, nor would any physicist contend that 

 it could produce crystals, of its own composition, out 

 of carbonate of soda. Nor, as is justly contended by 

 Dr. Beale, should the cell be compared to a machine, 

 unless that machine possess a power of producing 

 new machines out of material unlike itself, and of 

 endowing them with a similar power. 



In morbid processes, also, the germinal matter is the 

 seat of activity, being abnormally increased, dimin- 



10* 



