60 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



underwent a most important modification: 'vital' 

 phenomena, instead of being looked upon as altogether 

 peculiar, were gradually more and more recognized as 

 the results of physical forces which, as Dr. Carpenter 

 expressed it, had been transformed or conditioned in 

 various ways by their c passage through the organism.' 

 And now amongst nearly all advanced physiologists the 

 same kind of Correlation is implicitly believed to exist 

 between the Vital and the Physical Forces, and between 

 the several vital forces, as we know exists between the 

 physical forces Inter se. Some there are, however, who 

 still contend that there is such a thing as a peculiar 

 c vital force,' a something which finds no place amongst 

 this circle of correlated energies 1 . It is argued, that in 

 order to bring about this metamorphosis of the physical 

 forces, which is to give rise to the various manifesta- 

 tions of vegetable and animal life, there must be 

 needed some force inherent in the organism as a whole, 

 and in every part of its structure. That this force or 

 power, altogether independent of the correlated series, 

 is the vital force that which conditions or transforms 

 the physical forces, in order that they may give rise to 

 the most varied vital phenomena. But if the vital or 



1 Dr. Lionel Beale, for instance, says in his new work on ' Protoplasm,' 

 ' In order to account for the facts, I conceive that some directing 

 agency of a kind peculiar to the living world exists in association with 

 every particle of living matter, which, in some hitherto unexplained 

 manner, affects temporarily its elements, and determines the precise 

 changes which are to take place when the living matter again comes 



der the influence of certain external conditions.' (2nd ed. p. 119 ) 



