THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN FRANCE. 



129 



the phenomenon of individual life, that great vortex into 

 which agencies, processes, and the elements of inorganic 

 nature are continually drawn, from which they are con- 

 tinually ejected, preserving not the unity of substance 

 but, among changing events, the unity of form. 1 



" It is not," he says, " in the substance that in plants 

 and animals the identity of the species is manifested, it is 

 in the form. There are probably not two men, two oaks, 

 two rose - trees, which have the compound elements of 

 their bodies in the same proportion and even these 

 elements change without end, they circulate rather than 

 reside in that abstract and figured space which we call 

 the form ; in a few years probably there is not left one 

 atom of that which constitues our body to-day only the 

 form is persistent ; the form alone perpetuates in multiply- 

 ing itself ; transmitted by the mysterious operation which 

 we call generation to an endless series of individuals, it 

 will attract successively to itself numberless molecules of 

 different matter, all of them merely transient." 2 



1 " La vie est done un tourbillon 

 plus ou moins rapide, plus ou moins 

 complique", dont la direction est 

 constante, et qui entraine tou jours 

 des molecules de memes sortes, 

 mais ou les molecules individuelles 

 entrent et d'ou elles sortent con- 

 tinuellement, de maniere que la 

 forme du corps vivant lui est plus 

 essentielle que la matiere" ('Regne 

 animal,' p. 13, &c.) " II vient 

 sans cesse des elements du dehors 

 en dedans : il s'en e"chappe du de- 

 dans au dehors : toutes les parties 

 sont dans un tourbillon continuel, 

 qui est une condition essentielle du 

 phe"nomene, et que nous ne pouvons 

 suspendre longtemps sans 1'arreter 

 pour jamais. Les branches les plus 

 simples de 1'histoire naturelle par- 



VOL. I. 



ticipent dejh, a cette complication 

 et a ce mouvement perpe"tuel, qui 

 rendent si difficile 1'application des 

 sciences ge'ne'rales" ('Rapport,'p. 150, 

 &c.) " Dans les corps vivans chaque 

 partie a sa composition propre et 

 distincte ; aucune de leurs mole"- 

 cules ne reste en place ; toutes en- 

 trent et sortent successivement : la 

 vie est un tourbillon continuel, 

 dont la direction, toute complique'e 

 qu'elle est, demeure constante, ainsi 

 que 1'espece des molecules qui y 

 sont entraine"es, mais non les mole"- 

 cules individuelles elles-memes. . . . 

 Ainsi la forme de ces corps leur est 

 plus essentielle que leur matiere," 

 &c. (ibid., p. 200). 



2 ' Eloges historiques,' vol. iii. p. 

 156. 



