B L O O D. 



ation become* no creation at all ; and it' so, then 

 there can be no miracle, and no daily creation; and 

 the whole becomes an absurdity. Such is the con- 

 clusion to which all the sceptical doctrines lead, if we 

 carry them but a single step beyond the doubting 

 point that point at which the mind loses the way 

 and will not seek direction in that quarter where 

 alone it is to be found. Yet it is not accurately called 

 the doubting point, it is really the point of too easy 

 belief that at which our vanity turns away from 

 the truth, and gives full and doting credence to the 

 absurdity. 



This animal action, which we find most remarkably 

 displayed in the blood and the muscle, is then a phe- 

 nomenon of matter, and of matter only ; and as such 

 every case of it must have an antecedent or a cause, 

 not merely a cause to put it in motion at the time or 

 for the instant, but a cause to which its capacity or 

 faculty of being put in motion must be owing. Is it 

 of the parent, descending from generation to genera- 

 tion? It is not. The parent does not in any instance 

 communicate motion or action of any kind to the off- 

 spring. Even in the case of^uterine production, in 

 which, from position and some other circumstances, 

 we might be led to believe that there is the closest 

 connexion, there is no transmission of animal action 

 from the mother to the young. There is a partition, and 

 there are two distinct lives. All the organisation on the 

 one side, whether for that particular state, or for more 

 permanence, is of and from the lite of the parent; 

 and all on the other side is c.f and from the life of the 

 offspring. There is no community of circulation, no 

 community of muscular action, no community of 

 nervous affection, and no community in any one 

 particular that can be named. Either may bo indis- 

 posed while the other is in health, and cither may die 

 the other remaining alive. The young may be cast 

 off as an untimely thing, or it may turn to corruption 

 in situ, and yet the parent may escape. And if no 

 casualty happens, it separates in the fulness of time; 

 and unless in those membranes which were its own, 

 that is, the products of its own organisation, there is 

 no wound nor laceration. The parting is one of 

 health, and the final step of a healing process, just as 

 the seed falls off' when it is fully ripe, or the leaf 

 when the seasonal action of the tree is at an end ; or, 

 more appropriately, the cgir of the oviparous animal, 

 which is actually dissolved from* all connexion with 

 the parent, and elaborating its own structure, by a 

 curious preliminary action of life, before it comes to 

 be deposited in the external nest. 



Thus, even in this the most wonderful portion of 

 nature, or of science of any kind, in which the mind 

 can be occupied, we seek in vain for the origin of the 

 living action that which is in the blood and the mus- 

 cle, and which the stroke of the lightning, and the 

 other causes to which allusion bus been made, can 

 destroy in an instant. In the succession of races, we 

 find that there is a continuation of matter, but no con- 

 tinuationof that motion which we consider, and rightly 

 -idcr, as the indication of life. That may be, 

 and is, within certain limits, similar in the species 

 through all its generations ; but in every individual it 

 is new, the life of that individual and of none else. 

 And here we can see clearly that it is mortal life, 

 that as it begins with the individual, so with the indi- 

 vidual it ends. Not one tittle of the experience of 

 the material parent descends to the material offspring, 

 but as life begins ab origine in the individual, so does 



NAT. HIST. VOL. I. 



all the experience of life. Not to with mind : there 

 the memorial remains, and in the sr.nplc fact that we 

 of the present generation may be wise in the wisdom 

 of generations gone by, we have a proof and at the 

 same time an illustrative example of the immortality 

 of mind, and of its entire difference from matter. 



Where, then, is that action of life in the animal 

 which belongs to it as matter, and begins and perishes 

 ; with the individual? Is it of the organisation? No; 

 for it is by this very action that the organisation is 

 evolved. Is it true that we cannot pronounce that 

 there is life till we can see its effects ; and as the 

 first action of life in many animals is the evolution of 

 its own structure, we cannot pronounce that there is 

 life till some rudimental part of that organisation is 

 formed ; we cannot, for instance, say that the egg is 

 not addled, and as such only a portion of matter fit for 

 , going to the store-house of nature's materials, till we 

 seethe primary action in it the presence of the rudi- 

 mental heart and the rudimental blood, the former a 

 muscular structure, and the latter capable of elabora- 

 ting that peculiar kind of muscular substance. These 

 are the first evidences which we can obtain ; but 

 they are not the beginning; they are the results, 

 and results of self-action in the egg, though that ac- 

 tion requires certain external stimuli certain other 

 actions of matter before it begins. 



Thus the action precedes the organised substance ; 

 and therefore the action must be analogous to some- 

 thing which is not cognisable by the ordinary tests of 

 matter. And when we look around, we find that this 

 is not the only case in which results are brought 

 about by means which cannot be brought to our 

 ordinary tests of matter. The action of heat is all- 

 powerful, so much so, that no strength of matter can 

 withstand it; and yet it counts as nothing by the 

 balance, and measures not a hair-breadth by the line. 

 Light is in the same predicament; and when a cer- 

 tain intensity is arrived at, light and heat are insepa- 

 rable. Electricity, by mechanical friction, or by 

 chemical decomposition, and magnetism, apparently 

 dependent upon the relative positions of one sub- 

 stance with another, are also, at certain degrees of 

 intensity, inseparable from heat and light. There is, 

 therefore, an obvious connexion between all these 

 phenomena, or all these actions for we cannot con- 

 sider them as matter or substance under any modifi- 

 cation as no intensity of any or all of them can be 

 made to amount to a material quantity. We see 

 their effects only in some kinds or combinations of 

 matter ; and in different kinds or combinations, or in 

 the same under different states, but they differ in their 

 apparent intensities. Our natural perceptions are 

 limited to that which it is necessary for us to know ; 

 and as we extend the bounds of our knowledge, the 

 means of extending that knowledge further and 

 making it more minute, extend along with them. The 

 same science which sought to explore the heavens, 

 found out the telescope, and the desire of being bet- 

 ter acquainted with the minute, led to the construc- 

 tion of the microscope; therefore we need not de- 

 spair in any matter which lies within the scope of the 

 material creation. Those energies, which we have 

 hitherto been able to observe in particular sub- 

 stances, and under particular circumstances o'nly, 

 may be afterwards found to influence all substances 

 under all circumstances ; and, among others, the 

 living body in all its states. They, including animal 

 life in the number, are probably all modifications of 

 SS 



