ORGANIZATION AND VITALITY. 529 



possess no internal mechanism for renewing their 

 composition. But the essential attribute of the 

 elements of organized bodies is that of mobility 

 or activity, by which they are kept in a state 

 of perpetual transformation, or transition from 

 death to life, and from life to death. 



" All forms that perish, other forms supply, 

 By turns we catch the vital breath and die.'* 



Owing to the large amount of caloric around 

 these elements, they are enabled to form ternary 

 and quaternary combinations, with the aptitude 

 for life; and when reduced to the condition of 

 dead matter, they are constantly entering into 

 binary combinations of water, carbonic acid, &c., 

 or into the simplest forms of living organizations. 

 But if reduced to a low temperature, all their 

 chemical and vital affinities cease, when they 

 assume that condition of repose which charac- 

 terizes the elements of mineral bodies. The sap 

 of plants is no longer converted into cambium, 

 lignin, bark, leaves, flowers, and fruits. The 

 food of animals is no longer converted into 

 chyme by uniting with gastric liquor ; into 

 chyle by uniting with bile and pancreatic juice ; 

 nor into blood during the pulmonary circulation. 

 But when the temperature of the human body 

 is maintained by respiration at the normal 

 standard, it exhibits a universe of motion in 

 miniature. Like the waters of the earth 

 that are continually passing from the ocean by 



