X 



4 CHARACTERISTICS OF ANIMALS, &C. 



of chemical attraction, but not fed by nourishment taken into an 

 organized structure. Their curious crystallization bears some re- 

 semblance to organization, but performs none of its functions, nor 

 is any thing like a vital principle to be found in this department of 

 Nature. 



If it be asked what is this vital principle, so essential to animals 

 and vegetables, but of which fossils are destitute, we must own our 

 complete ignorance. We know it, as we know its Omnipotent 

 Author, by its effects. 



Perhaps in the Fossil Kingdom heat may be equivalent to a vital 

 principle; but heat is not the vital principle of organized bodies, 

 though probably a consequence of that principle. 



Living bodies of animals and plants produce heat; and this phae- 

 nomenon has not, perhaps, been entirely explained on any chemi- 

 cal principles, though in fossils the production of heat is in most 

 cases tolerably well accounted for. In animals it seems to have 

 the closest possible connexion with the vital energy. But the 

 effects of this vital energy are still more stupendous in the opera- 

 tions constantly going on in every organized body, from our own 

 elaborate frame to the humblest moss or fungus. Those different 

 fluids, so fine and transparent, separated from each other by 

 membranes as fine, which compose Jhe eye, all retain their proper 

 .situations (though each fluid individually is perpetually removed and 

 renewed) for sixty, eighty, or a hundred years, or more, while life 

 remains. So do the infinitely small vessels of an almost invisible 

 insect, the fine and pellucid tubes of a plant, all hold their des- 

 tined fluids, conveying or changing them according to fixed laws, 

 but never permitting them to run into confusion, so long as the 

 vital principle animates their various forms. But no sooner does 

 death happen, than, without any alteration of structure, any appa- 

 rent change in their material configuration, all is reversed. The 

 eve loses its form and brightness ; its membranes let go their con- 

 tents, which mix in confusion, and thenceforth yield to the laws of 

 chemistry alone. Just so it happens, sooner or later, to the other 

 parts of the animal as well as vegetable frame. Chemical changes, 

 putrefaction and destruction, immediately follow the total priva- 

 tion of life, the importance of which becomes instantly evident when 

 it is no more. It is hence, therefore, to be conceived, that if the hu- 

 maa understanding can in any case flatter itself with obtaining, in 



