ON MATTER AND FOECE. 63 



As in the abiological sciences the earliest 

 ideas of matter were quite separate from the 

 ideas of force, so vital force, in the first stage 

 of our ideas, was originally pure spirit, void 

 of all materiality, perfectly separable from 

 matter. 



In the second or transition stage in the 

 abiological sciences, force was imperfectly 

 separable from matter. Force was itself a 

 highly-attenuated volatile substance, an im- 

 ponderable elementary principle ; or the force 

 was inseparably united with an imponderable 

 fluid, gas, or aether, which gave to ponderable 

 matter its energies whilst the union lasted. 



In the second, or transition, or Hunterian 

 stage in the biological sciences, the vital force 

 is either itself an imponderable solid, fluid, gas, 

 spirit (geist\ -or ghost, or it is inseparably 

 attached to an imponderable matter which can 

 temporarily be diffused through ponderable 

 matter. 



In my next lecture I shall show you that the 

 abiological sciences are far in advance of the 

 biological sciences in the extent to which the 

 third stage of ideas of the perfect union of 

 ponderable matter and force is held to obtain. 



