164 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



animal. In like manner when a tadpole is converted into a frog,, 

 the animal, for a while, loses weight; a portion of the organism of 

 its tail has been expended developing the power necessary to the 

 transformation, while another portion has served for the material 

 of the legs. 



What then is the office of vitality ? We say that it is analogous 

 to that of the engineer who directs the power of the steam-engine 

 in the execution of its work. Without this, in the case of the egg, 

 the materials, left to the undirected force of affinity, would end in 

 simply producing chemical compounds sulphureted hydrogen, 

 carbonic acid, etc. There is no special analogy between the process 

 of crystallization and that of vital action. In the one case definite 

 mathematical forms are the necessary results, while in the other the 

 results are precisely like those which are produced under the 

 direction of will and intelligence, evincing a design and a purpose, 

 making provision at one stage of the process for results to be 

 attained at a later, and producing organs intended evidently for 

 locomotion and perception. Not only is the result the same as that 

 which is produced by human design, but in all cases the power with 

 which this principle operates is the same as that with which the 

 intelligent engineer produces his result. 



This doctrine was first given in a communication to the Ameri- 

 can Philosophical Society, in December, 1844, and more fully 

 developed in a paper published in the Patent Office Report in 1857. 



The publication, in full, of three of the series of investigations 

 herein described, was made in the "Transactions of the American 

 Philosophical Society." Others were published in "Silliman's 

 Journal/' and both these are noticed in the " Royal Society's Cata- 

 logue of Scientific Papers ;" but the remainder of them were pub- 

 lished in the " Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society," 

 and are not mentioned in the work just referred to. 



In 1846, while still at Princeton, I was requested by members 

 of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, which was 

 then just founded, to study the will of Smithson, and to give a plan 

 of organization by which the object of the bequest might be real- 

 ized. My conclusion was that the intention of the donor was to 

 advance science by original research and publication, that the estab- 



