THE VITAL PRTNCirLE — THE BLOOD. 11 



in organic bodies. Life — we are once more 

 forced to the conclusion — is a mystery ; nor 

 can we penetrate beyond the revelation which 

 God lias made in the first chapter of the book 

 of Genesis, wherein we learn only this, that 

 living beings arose into existence in obedience 

 to his word. In their Introduction to the 

 French edition of Meckel's Comparative 

 Anatomy, the translators (MM. liiester and 

 Alph. Sanson) ask — " The principle of life, is 

 it anything more than a modification of the 

 cause of electric forces?" We do not quite 

 understand the meaning of the latter phrase ; 

 however, the writers state that this is far from 

 being definitely settled, and then they go on to 

 observe, " that chemistry has revealed tin' pri- 

 mitive elements of organic bodies, and that 

 microscopic observation has demonstrated the 

 globular disposition as the essential form of the 

 intimate structure of all tissues under the influ- 

 ence of life." We may here reiterate our ob- 

 servation, that although the vital phenomena 

 may involve a perpetual play of galvanic or 

 electro-galvanic changes and phases, and may 

 agitate the nerves so as to render them efficient 

 in the fulfilment of their multifarious offices, 

 we have no reason thence to assume that the 

 electric fluid under any aspect is identical 

 with the vital principle.* 



* "Wherever there is organization and life there is also 

 electric tension ? or the play of the voltaic pile, as the experi- 

 ments of Nobili and Matteucci, and especially the latest 

 admirable labours of Emil du Hois, teach us. The last-named 

 philosopher has succeeded in manifesting the presence of the 



