THE PEESENT ASPECT OF MEDICINE. 347 



unprejudiced application of the precise methods of chemical 

 and physical research to the investigation of the organic 

 structures and actions has shown that the influence of 

 chemical and physical force extends far beyond the limits 

 formerly assigned to them in the living economy, nevertheless 

 this has in no degree affected the evidence of a co-existing 

 non-chemical and non-physical element in organisation. In pro- 

 portion as the test-glass, the galvanometer, and the kymograph 

 have dragged into view the purely material character of the 

 forces in action in the living organism, so much the more 

 clearly and strikingly do the organic characteristics of the 

 chemical constitution and of the anatomical configuration 

 and connection of the parts in action stand forth ; and so 

 much the more remarkable, because in deeper contrast, do 

 the acts of consciousness become. 



The characteristic peculiarity of chemical action in the 

 living organism may be said to consist in this — that certain 

 of its products are such as are never met with in inorganic 

 matter. It would appear as if the so-called chemical force in 

 the living organism were under the control of an unknown 

 quantity, which, while it confines that force in the greater 

 part of its functions to a special form of chemical action, 

 does not thereby render it less a chemical force than when it 

 acts in inorganic matter. 



In like manner, while the so-called physical force, as 

 manifested in its domains of statics, dynamics, hydro- 

 dynamics, pneumatics, optics, acoustics, thermatics, and 

 electricity, presents itself, in the living body of one of the 

 higher animals, in its most complex relations in the cor- 

 responding departments of its influence, it nevertheless 

 appears in the latter, like the chemical force in the same 

 circumstances, to be confined by the same unknown quantity 

 to a manifestation of itself, such as it never exhibits in 

 inorganic masses. While the configurations of the inorganic 



