VITALITY. 411 



were by no means prepared to see a rigid mechanical sig- 

 nification attached to their words. This, however, is the 

 peculiarity of modern conclusions : that there is no creative 

 energy whatever in the vegetable or animal organism, but 

 that all the power which we obtain from the muscles of 

 men and animals, as much as that which we develop by 

 the combustion of wood or coal, has been produced at the 

 sun's expense. The sun is so much colder that we may 

 have our fires ; he is also so much colder that we may have 

 our horse-racing and Alpine climbing. It is, for example, 

 certain that the sun has been chilled to an extent capable 

 of being accurately expressed in numbers, in order to fur- 

 nish the power which lifted this year a certain number of 

 tourists from the vale of Chamouni to the summit of Mont 

 Blanc. 



To most minds, however, the energy of light and heat 

 presents itself as a thing totally distinct from ordinary me- 

 chanical energy. But either of them can be derived from 

 the other. By the friction of wood a savage can raise it 

 to the temperature of ignition ; by properly striking a piece 

 of iron a skilful blacksmith can cause it to glow, and thus, 

 by the rude agency of his hammer, he generates light and 

 heat. This action, if carried far enough, would produce the 

 light and heat of the sun. In fact the sun's light and heat 

 have actually been referred to the fall of meteoric matter 

 upon his surface ; and whether the sun is thus supported or 

 not, it is perfectly certain that he might be thus supported. 

 Whether, moreover, the whilom molten condition of our 

 planet was, as supposed by eminent men, due to the collision 

 of cosmic masses or not, it is perfectly certain that the mol- 

 ten condition might be thus brought about. If, then, solar 

 light and heat can be produced by the impact of dead mat- 

 ter, and if from the light and heat thus produced Ave can 

 derive the energies which we have been accustomed to call 

 vital, it indubitably follows that vital energy may have a 

 proximately mechanical origin. 



