22 DEFINITIONS OF LIFE. 



then is Y x? the answer is, the antithesis of Y-J-X, 

 a reciprocation of great service, that may remind us of 

 the twin sisters in the fable of the Lamise, with but one 

 eye between them both, which each borrowed from the 

 other as either happened to want it ; but with this addi- 

 tional disadvantage, that in the present case it is after 

 all but an eye of glass. The definitions themselves will 

 best illustrate our meaning. I will begin with that 

 given by Bichat. " Life is the sum of all the functions 

 by which death is resisted/' in which I have in vain 

 endeavoured to discover any other meaning than that life 

 consists in being able to live. This author, with a 

 whimsical gravity, prefaces his definition with the remark, 

 that the nature of life has hitherto been sought for in 

 abstract considerations ; as if it were possible that four 

 more inveterate abstractions could be brought together 

 in one sentence than are here assembled in the words, 

 life, death, function, and resistance. Similar instances 

 might be cited from Eicherand and others. The word 

 Life is translated into other more learned words ; and this 

 paraphrase of the term is substituted for the definition of 

 the thing, and therefore (as is always the case in every 

 real definition as contra- distinguished from a verbal defi- 

 nition,) for at least a partial solution of the fact. Such 

 as these form the first class. The second class takes some 

 one particular function of Life common to all living objects, 

 nutrition, for instance ; or, to adopt the phrase most in 

 vogue at present, assimilation, for the purposes of repro- 

 duction and growth. Now this, it is evident, can be an 

 appropriate definition only of the very lowest species, as of a 

 Fungus or a Mollusca ; and just as comprehensive an idea 



