EXTRACT XL. B. 



ON LIFE (continued). 



LIFE, as it presents itself for observation, for the collec- 

 tion of facts thereanent, and for the deduction of the laws 

 relating thereto, is to be met with in the human body on its 

 most elaborate scale, and, in that it is always present with 

 us, it may, therefore, be constantly studied in its most 

 minute details and in its manifold workings, general and 

 particular. Thus, we can trace the vitalisation of the 

 elements of the raw pabulum with which we supply our 

 bodies, the organisation of these vitalised elements, the 

 working and inter-working of the organic parts of the 

 completely developed organism, and, at last, the involution 

 and dissolution of that organism. In this prolonged 

 process we have to observe the sequence of material 

 change as it is brought about by the play of vital energy 

 on the metamorphosing food elements, and to realise 

 the modifications undergone by these elements in their 

 re-conversion into their inorganic condition and return to 

 their original elemental state. 



The process of vitalisation may be said to begin with 

 the reduction of the food elements into a plastic and 

 quasi-molecular condition, wherein they can become ab- 

 sorbed by the gastro-intestinal mucosa and passed into 

 the blood directly, or circulated through the vasculo- 

 glandular mechanism of the lacteals, where they become 

 organised into granular and lymphocite bodies, floating 

 in a homogeneous fluid matrix of richly nutritious fluid, 

 which becomes the basis of the liquor sanguinis. Here 

 we see the process of haemogenesis commenced, and the 



