VITAL POWER. i2i 



formed according to and acts upon the same principles. 

 Actions most complex are carried out through the influence 

 of what is ordinarily termed will. This is essentially related 

 to life itself, and probably is the vital force or power of 

 certain kinds of living matter. But it must not be supposed 

 that vital phenomena are due to will alone, for in all cases 

 these occur long before there are any manifestations of will, 

 as the term is ordinarily understood, indeed, before the 

 tissues through which alone will operates have been de- 

 veloped. At all periods of life there are tissues which live 

 and grow independently of the influence of will. Neither 

 can instinct nor mind be regarded as life, although I think 

 these, as well as will, are forms of vital power. 



In man there seems to be seated in and limited to 

 a special part of his nervous mechanism, a still higher and 

 more wonderful power, influencing a very special and easily 

 destructible living matter. By virtue of this power man 

 alone, of all created beings, is impelled to seek for the 

 causes of the phenomena he observes, and is enabled 

 to devise new arrangements of material substances for his 

 own definite purposes, and in a manner in which these sub- 

 stances were never arranged before, and in which it is not 

 conceivable they could be arranged without man's design 

 and agency. The power supposed, totally distinct from any 

 forces or properties of which we are cognizant, and not in 

 any way correlated with any known forms or modes of force 

 of which we have any experience, exerts its sway upon any 

 definite portion of matter, during varying but usually only 

 very brief periods of time, often momentarily, and is then 

 transferred to, or passes on, and influences new particles. 



