MACHINES DO NOT GROW. 47 



still present no approach whatever to any organism known. 

 Of course such a thing might be called an organism, just as 

 a watch, or a steam-engine, or water, or anything else, may 

 be called a creature, a worm or any other living thing 

 called a machine. But every living machihe seems to grow 

 of itself, builds itself up, and multiplies, while every non- 

 living machine that has yet been discovered is made. It 

 neither grows, nor can it produce machines like itself. Neither 

 Mr. Justice Grove nor any one else has yet adduced a 

 single argument to justify a comparison between any living 

 organism and any machine. 



Sir W. 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 com- 

 plex 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 ; 

 that heat, light, electricity, &c., sustain the result of the com- 

 bined action of heat, light, electricity. Moreover it is said, 

 that what we call life is the result of the combined action of 

 motion, heat, light, electricity, &c., 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, it seems, involves something besides force, or is 

 something different from any mode of force. 



But it will be a long time before anything that can be 

 urged will modify the views that have been so widely and 

 so confidently taught. Let us therefore submit to the 

 dictates of " reason," and go with the stream. The body 

 shall be a machine, and consciousness like heat shall have 



