PHYSIOLOGY OF LIFE. 93 



men may work wonders ; as what, indeed, cannot be done 

 with a plenum and a vacuum, when a theorist has privileged 

 himself to assume the one, or the other, ad libitum? in 

 all innocence of heart, and undisturbed by the reflection 

 that the two things cannot both be true. That both time 

 and space are mere abstractions I am well aware; but 

 I know with equal certainty that what is expressed by 

 them as the identity of both is the highest reality, and the 

 root of all power, the power to suffer, as well as the power 

 to act. However mere an ens logicum space may be, the 

 dimensions of space are real, and the works of Galileo, in more 

 than one elegant passage, prove with what awe and amaze- 

 ment they fill the mind that worthily contemplates them. 

 Dismissing, therefore, all facts of degrees, as introduced 

 merely for the purposes of illustration, I would make 

 as little reference as possible to the magnet, the charged 

 phial, or the processes of the laboratory, and designate 

 the three powers in the process of our animal life, each 

 by two co-relative terms, the one expressing the form, 

 and the other the object and product of the power. My 

 hypothesis will, therefore, be thus expressed, that the 

 constituent forces of life in the human living body are 

 first, the power of length, or REPRODUCTION ; second, the 

 power of surface (that is, length and breadth), or IRRITA- 

 BILITY ; third, the power of depth, or SENSIBILITY. With 

 this observation I may conclude these remarks, only 

 reminding the reader that Life itself is neither of these 

 separately, but the copula of all three that Life, as 

 Life, supposes a positive or universal principle in Nature, 

 with a negative principle in every particular animal, the 

 latter, or limitative power, constantly acting to indivi- 



