106 CATALYSIS OF LIFE. 



soil, and there retained for the use of plants, which naay grow 

 near it. 



139. Let plants be grown in the soil, whose action has 

 been considered. This introduces life into the process, and 

 it gives life to all around it. It is not pretended to explain 

 what the action of life is. It has many relations with chem- 

 ical processes. By the refined chemistry of the present day, 

 many products are formed, which have been usually, and in 

 fact, are now considered products of living action only ; the 

 peculiar product of life, urea, is formed artificially ; so of 

 other products, and out of carbon, nitrogen, and water, nmy 

 be formed as many, and as complex products as are ever 

 elaborated by a living process; yet life is not a chemical 

 process, and were it attempted to explain how, out of the 

 four simple elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitro- 

 gen, all the variety of vegetable products are formed, it 

 might be said that life is a catalytic power. The vital prin- 

 ciple by its presence, impresses the same power on the food 

 we take, that the peculiar principle in malt and in potato, 

 called diastase, impresses on starch. It merely, by its pres- 

 ence, gives to the elements power to enter into new combi- 

 nations, and then these combinations occur in obedience only 

 to the well-known, established, eternal laws of chemical 

 affinity. 



140. So, too, the presence of a growing plant, of the root, 

 of a seed, where life is, impresses on the soil, both on the 

 organic and inorganic elements, power to enter into new 

 arrangements. The soil, then, is not external to the plants ; 

 so far as life is concerned, it is as much internal as if the 

 plant had a mouth and stomach, through and into which the 

 soil might be fed. 



141. Call this power life, electricity, galvanism, or by any 

 other name, still the great fact, that the mere presence of a 



