40 PHYSIOLOGY OF LIFE. 



whatever way it may modify itself. 1 That the mere act of 

 growth does not constitute the idea of Life, or the absence 

 of that act exclude it, we have a proof in every egg before it 

 is placed under the hen, and in every grain of corn before 

 it is put into the soil. All that could be deduced by fair 

 reasoning would amount to this only, that the life of 

 metals, as the power which effects and determines their 

 comparative cohesion, ductility, &c., was yet lower on the 

 scale than the Life which produces the first attempts of 

 organization, in the almost shapeless tremella, or in such 

 fungi as grow in the dark recesses of the mine. 



If it were asked, to what purpose or with what view we 

 should generalize the idea of Life thus broadly, I should 

 not hesitate to reply that, were there no other use con- 

 ceivable, there would be some advantage in merely de- 

 stroying an arbitrary assumption in natural philosophy, 

 and in reminding the physiologists that they could not 

 hear the life of metals asserted with a more contemptuous 

 surprise than they themselves incur from the vulgar, when 

 they speak of the Life in mould or mucor. But this is 

 not the case. This wider view not only precludes a ground- 

 less assumption, it likewise fills up the arbitrary chasm 

 between physics and physiology, and justifies us in using 

 the former as means of insight into the latter, which would 

 be contrary to all sound rules of ratiocination if the powers 

 working in the objects of the two sciences were absolutely 



1 The arborescent forms on a frosty morning, to be seen on the window 

 and pavement, must have some relation to the more perfect forms developed 

 in the vegetable world. 



