PHYSIOLOGY OF LIFE. 



calculus. For the full applicability of an abstract science 

 ceases, the moment reality begins. 1 Life, then, we con- 

 sider as the copula, or the unity of thesis and antithesis, 

 position and counterposition, Life itself being the positive 

 of both; as, on the other hand, the two counterpoints 

 are the necessary conditions of the manifestations of Life. 

 These, by the same necessity, unite in a synthesis ; 

 which again, by the law of dualism, essential to all actual 

 existence, expands, or produces itself, from the point into 

 the line, in order again to converge, as the initiation of 

 the same productive process in some intenser form of 

 reality. Thus, in the identity of the two counter-powers, 

 Life subsists ; in their strife it consists : and in their re- 



1 For abstractions are the conditions and only snbject of all abstract 

 sciences. Thus the theorist (vide Dalton's Theory), who reduces the chemical 

 process to the positions of atoms, would doubtless thereby render chemistry 

 calculable, but that he commences by destroying the chemical process itself, 

 and substitutes for it a mote dance of abstractions ; for even the powers which 

 he appears to leave real, those of attraction and repulsion, he immediately 

 unrealizes by representing them as diverse and separable properties. We can 

 abstract the quantities and the quantitative motion from masses, passing over 

 or leaving for other sciences the question of what constitutes the masses, and 

 thus apply not to the masses themselves, but to the abstractions therefrom, 

 the laws of geometry and universal arithmetic. And where the quantities 

 are the infallible signs of real powers, and our chief concern with the masses 

 is as SIGNS, sciences may be founded thereon of the highest use and dignity. 

 Such, for instance, is the sublime science of astronomy, baving for its objects 

 the vast masses which " God placed in the firmament of the heaven to be for 

 signs and for seasons, for days and years." For the whole doctrine of physics 

 may be reduced to three great divisions : First, quantitative motion, which is 

 proportioned to the quantity of matter exclusively. This is the science of 

 weight or statics. Secondly, relative motion, as communicated to bodies exter- 

 nally by impact. This is the science of mechanics. Thirdly, qualitative motion, 

 or that which is accordant to properties of matter. And this is chemistry. 

 Now it is evident that the first two sciences presuppose that which forms the 

 exclusive object of the third, namely, quality ; for all quantity in nature is 

 either itself derived, or at least derives its powers from some quality, as that 

 of weight, specific cohesion, hardness, &c. ; and therefore the attempt to re- 



