LECT. I. PHENOMENA OF LIVING BEINGS. 2l 



gulates under the action of a strong heat ; their elements 

 separate in the gaseous form, producing more simple and 

 consequently more stable combinations. 



Electricity. The electrical discharge traverses organized 

 bodies, and diffuses itself in their interior with more or less 

 facility, according to their different degrees of humidity. 

 When the spark passes through them, it volatilizes and 

 burns them, reducing them to ashes. When the electric 

 current traverses the fluids of living beings, it effects the 

 decomposition of the salts contained within them ; acids 

 being evolved at one pole, bases at the other. Albumen 

 coagulates at the positive pole, where oxygen and a frothy 

 acid liquid are set free ; hydrogen appears at the negative 

 pole along with an alkaline liquid. 



Light. With regard to the luminous rays, no one can 

 be ignorant of the fact, that in traversing the humours of 

 the eye they deviate from a right line, sometimes diverging, 

 sometimes converging, according to the different density of 

 the humours and the conformation of the parts which con- 

 tain them, as in a dioptric instrument. 



Affinity. Let me add, that the elements of which human 

 beings are composed are always obedient to the general laws 

 of affinity ; the chemist can recognise and separate them by 

 the ordinary process of analysis. Subject them to the in- 

 fluence of chlorine, bromine, or iodine, and hydrogen will 

 be the first element which will be separated to combine 

 with these metalloids and form hydracids. 



All oxidising agencies, when tolerably energetic, convert 

 organic matters into acids. 



Phenomena of Living Beings. From these considerations 

 are we to conclude that-all the phenomena of living beings 

 are explicable, by the general properties which belong to 

 them in common with all the bodies of nature, and by the 

 sole action of the great physical forces, caloric, light, elec- 



