Appendix. 71 



The vital element must float in the gastric juice and in the 

 blood, in the chyle and in the nervous fluid, and pervade the 

 flesh and all the solids of the living organism. When particles 

 cease to be animated with the vital element, they are soon se- 

 creted, and eventually excreted from the system ; and if any ob- 

 struction be offered to their secretion or excretion, they are 

 turned into other chanels, and either inflammation, or an ab- 

 normal formation is the result. 



The phenomena of life indicate that the vital element is 

 very subtle imponderable matter, in some respects similar to 

 caloric and electricity except that it has no more mobility than 

 oxygen, or any other gas. Like caloric and electricity, it may 

 be supposed to float in the atmosphere and in the ocean, and to 

 pervade the crust of the earth ; to operate upon, unite, and to 

 form into germs and organisms, atoms of matter in the atmos- 

 phere, in the earth, and in the waters upon the earth. It is the 

 organizing principle and the cause of the formation of the 

 germs, and of the development of plants and animals de novo, 

 and without parentage, in water, at the bottom of the ocean, 

 and upon newly formed islands. 



I regard as self-evident truths, ist, That force is an inher- 

 ent property of substance, and cannot exist independent of sub- 

 stance. 



2d, That no combination of elements can produce a force 

 not inherent in any of the elements themselves. 



3d, That the vital force, not being the subject of chemical 

 analysis, must be an inherent property of an element of matter 

 unknown to the chemist. 



Prof. Tyndall and the advocates of the dynamical school of 

 scientists, deny the existence of a vital element, and maintain 

 that the vital force is identical with what they call molecular 

 force. In my view, it is a pure assumption, and imaginary, to 

 suppose that there is any such thing as a molecular force dis- 

 tinct from, or other than, the chemical and physical forces of 

 the elements of which the molecules are composed. 



Dr. John Hunter said, " The living principle of the blood 

 is the materia vita diffusa, of which every part of an animal has 



