PREFACE. Vll 



Let us encounter, then, this objection on the grounds 

 that are here indicated, and inquire whether the 

 phenomena of vital motion will not receive light and 

 interpretation from the doctrine they seem to con- 

 tradict. Remembering the arguments for a common 

 law, let us not seek the explanation in the body alone 

 in which the movements are manifested, but in a 

 wider range of causes. Let us treat unity as a reality 

 and not as a fiction, and wait patiently for the result. 

 If we do this, every phenomenon will be found to point 

 to this truth; and this truth, on the other hand, by 

 enlarging our ideas to receive the comprehensiveness 

 of nature, will enable us to advance far towards the 

 explanation of vital motion. If we do this, the move- 

 ments of blood or other nutrient fluids in vessels 

 independently of any cardiac impulse, the action of 

 muscle, the beating of the heart, and many other 

 mysteries of life, will no longer perplex us, for each 

 will interpret the other, and all will refer to a common 

 law cosmical one. 



4, Henrietta-street, Cavendish-sqtKire. 

 January \st, 1851. 



