LIFE AND ORGANISATION. 57 



discussed in the bold and free spirit which belongs to the 

 science of our day. Each, in truth, furnishes ample materials 

 for difference and dispute. Looking at the controversy as 

 it now stands, we find the latter opinion to have gained much 

 upon its adversary. The doctrine of an independent vital 

 principle is one of old date ; and in its very nature admits of 

 little argument or advance. It rests mainly on the assumption 

 that the phenomena of life, even in their simplest form and 

 apart from mind and intelligence, are unlike, and incongruous 

 with, any actions of which we are cognisant as the obvious 

 results of physical forces operating upon matter. Though 

 the argument may be varied in form, yet in no way can it be 

 made more absolute, or stretched beyond this method and 

 degree of proof. By the very terms of the question, we quit 

 here the region of the senses and of material experiment, and 

 affirm a power unknown, except in what we presume to be 

 its effects. It is negative evidence ; and, as far as we see, can 

 never be rendered other than such. 



Those who advocate the other view, adopt a doctrine equally 

 insusceptible, it may be, of positive proof; but yet constantly 

 progressive, and in its progress prolific of results favourable 

 to the conclusion sought for. They have the advantage in 

 the very outset of being able to affirm, that without the 

 action and influence of the physical powers in question, no 

 life could possibly exist. The wonderful discoveries recently 

 made as to those more subtle actions of electricity, heat, and 

 light, which evaded the grosser experiments of former times, 

 have assisted their argument. Equally so the researches, 

 not less wonderful, into the molecular constitution of bodies ; 

 and the relative proportions in which such molecules, what- 

 ever their nature, unite in every case of chemical combination. 

 Chemistry, in fact, and especially the chemistry of organic 

 bodies, has done more for us in deciphering the structure 

 and functions which appertain to life, than any of the other 



