LIFE AND ORGANISATION. 61 



ourselves, and give propulsion to our engines, with that coal 

 which for countless ages has retained within its substance 

 the light and heat of its original forest growth. Such in- 

 stances as these may seem rashly to outrun the cautious step 

 of scientific induction. Yet they find authority in the fact, 

 well authenticated by Faraday, that one drop of water con- 

 tains, and may be made to evolve, as much electricity as 

 under other manner of evolution would suffice to produce a 

 lightning flash. And we might quote as an instance not 

 less wonderful, and still more in point, that germ of vitality 

 preserved for twenty or thirty centuries, which can make 

 prolific, under our own eyes, seeds taken from the mummy 

 cases of ancient Egypt. When positive observation teaches 

 us this much, we are not in case to deny the analogous con- 

 ditions put before us for belief. The abstract conception of 

 force, thus laid up for future evolution under the same or a 

 new form, is one of the most profound upon which either 

 reason or imagination can dwell* 



We must not, however, linger further on this question, 

 fundamental though it be to all researches into the nature 

 and laws of life ; and blending itself with every subordinate 

 question in which these laws are concerned. If it seem that 

 we have pressed the argument too much on one side, we must 

 repeat that the doctrine of a separate vital principle rests on 

 negative grounds only, and little admits either of amplifica- 

 tion or detail. The bold and active science of our day has 

 for the most part ranged itself on the opposite side ; and is 

 ever occupied in fixing new relations and equivalents of 

 power the materials, it may be, of more general laws than 

 have yet been reached by human intelligence. 



The question we have been discussing is common both to 

 animal and vegetable life. We now come to other topics, 

 subordinate and more special in their nature, yet all of high 

 interest to natural science, and all demonstrating the spirit 



