766 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Science has already " banished the vital force from the entire prov- 

 ince of organic chemical compounds, proving them to he subject to the 

 same physical and chemical forces which determine the composition of 

 mineral matter," and it now remains to test by analysis and synthesis 

 the problem of organization itself. 



It may very properly be asked. If the vital force has been banished 

 from the entire province of organic chemical compounds, as asserted 

 and demonstrated, in what it now resides, where is it located and what 

 are its functions ? 



Chemical science has already demonstrated that all "proximate 

 principles " and tissues of an organized body are, in an ultimate analy- 

 sis, reducible to some of the elementary substances ; and as, in inor- 

 ganic bodies, morphological differences result from the various com- 

 binations of the ultimate elements, so, too, is it with organized bodies. 

 So far as form alone is concerned, it is no more difficult to understand 

 why organic compounds, under conditions of vital relations, take on 

 the special form of a single speck of bioplasm in one case, of a vege- 

 table in another, or of an animal form in another case, than it is to 

 understand why the same elements will produce substances either allo- 

 tropic or isomeric. 



The phenomena are classified and thus explained, but in neither 

 example is the ultimate nature or condition which causes the morpho- 

 logical difference known. There is no known force in nature capable 

 of lifting the elements to the plane of animal organisms, except 

 through the intermediate planes of the mineral and the vegetable 

 kingdoms. Chemism is sufficient to form the mineral kingdom from 

 the simple elements, which are under physical force alone. As the 

 elementary combinations necessary to form a mineral involve an ex- 

 penditure of force, which is transformed from a lower to a higher 

 expression, so, in resolving the mineral back again to its elementary 

 state, the force conserved in a higher state represents the original 

 larger but weaker force of lower grade. The same is true when 

 chemical compounds, as represented in the mineral kingdom, are lifted 

 to the plane of the vegetable kingdom, or when the members of this 

 class are raised to the highest class of the animal kingdom. In all 

 cases the higher conditions depend upon the conditions of the next 

 lower plane ; and the conserved forces of the higher plane, when 

 liberated by decomposition, represent the special functions of the 

 organization. 



There is not a phenomenon in animal life, from the earliest stage 

 of germ-growth to the final stage of human development, but is sus- 

 ceptible of classification. The monera — mere specks of bioplasm — 

 organisms without organs, so far as can be determined in their power 

 to move, to receive nourishment, to react on external impressions and 

 to reproduce their kind — not only manifest the fundamental properties 

 of life, but display them under conditions so simple, so free from all 



