10 PROTOPLASM. 



a machine ; but everything that lives every so-called living 

 machine grows of itself, builds itself up, and multiplies, 

 while every non-living machine is made, does not grow, and 

 does not produce machines like itself. Mr. Grove further says 

 that in the human body we have chemical action, electricity, 

 magnetism, heat, light, motion, and possibly other forces 

 " contributing in the most complex manner to sustain that 

 result of combined action which we call life." Here it 

 seems to be affirmed that forces sustain the result of their 

 own combined action, but surely this is only asserting that 

 these forces sustain themselves. Heat, light, electricity, etc., 

 sustain the result of the combined action of heat, light, 

 electricity. It is moreover said that what we call life is the 

 result of the combined action of motion, heat, light, elec- 

 tricity, etc., which are but different forms or modes of one 

 force. But as everybody knows we may have any and all 

 modes of force without life. Life, therefore, involves some-. 

 thing besides force, or is something different from it. 



Those who teach that life is the sum of all the actions going on in a 

 living body, forget that these actions are not all of the same kind. Of 

 some we know very much, but of the nature of others we know nothing. 

 In every living thing there are physico-chemical actions, which also occur 

 out of the body, and vital actions. These last are peculiar to living 

 beings, and cannot be imitated. In galvanic batteries, and in other 

 arrangements made by man, we may have physico-chemical actions, but 

 never anything at all like vital actions. Of course, authority may 

 decree that henceforth the terms " living galvanic battery" "vital 

 machine" " animated steam engine" shall be employed, and that a man 

 shall be called a "physico-chemical apparatus" or a " kynetic" or 

 "electric machine" but the nature of the things themselves could not be 

 changed in the least degree by authority, however much the names by 

 which they were known were altered. 



