THE VITAL PRINCIPLE — TlIE BLOOD. 7 



animal loses when it dies, nor what it had 

 before it died ; therefore we know not what 

 death is, further than is made manifest to the 

 senses of the living, and that is, a resolution of 

 the frame into the elements around us — dust 

 unto dust. But something once kept this dust 

 together — gave it feelings, passions, and desires 

 — rendered the assumption of nutritive par- 

 ticles imperative, and made reproduction a law — 

 such was the fiat of creation. What, then, is this 

 something? — this that makes the infant grow to 

 manhood, the acorn rise into the oak — this that 

 permits man to wither as the flower, and the oak 

 to moulder into ruin. What, we repeat, is life ? 

 — or, if the reader like the term better — Whit 

 is the vital principle? It is obviously either 

 something or nothing ; if something, it must be 

 superadded to organization ; if nothing, it must 

 be a consequence of organization, find a mere 

 aspect of matter under certain conditions or 

 arrangements. But inert matter cannot vitalize 

 itself, nor can any other than vitalized bodies 

 produce or generate vitalized bodies. From 

 vital organization alone, is vital organization 

 transmitted. Turning for a solution of the 

 difficulties which invest the subject to an 

 examination of the phenomena of death, mystery 

 is still found enshrouding it. 



The precise mode in which an animal dies 

 we cannot tell; to say that it has ceased to 

 breathe and to feel, is to say nothing — for these 

 things are merely the consequences of death. 

 We may kill by blood-shedding, or by strangu- 



