ON LIFE. 



369 



given. The living endow^ments of the individual 

 parts are not exhausted. The sensibility may be 

 yet roused ; the nerves which convey the impres- 

 sion may yet so far retain their property, that 

 other motor nerves may be influenced through 

 them ; the muscles may be once more concatena- 

 ted, and drawn into a simultaneous action. That 

 vibratory motion which we have just said may be 

 witnessed in a muscle recently cut out of the 

 body, may be so excited in a class of muscles, for 

 example in the muscles of inspiration, that the ap- 

 parently dead draws an inspiration. Here is the 

 first of a series of vital motions which excites the 

 others, and the heart beats, and the blood circu- 

 lates, and the sensibilities are restored ; and the 



mind, wlii<jh was in the i^uiiUiiiun uf uiic aolccp, is 



roused into activity and volition, and all the com- 

 mon phenomena of life are resuscitated. Such is 

 the series of phenomena which is presented in ap- 

 parent death from suffocation ; but, if the death 

 has been from an injury of some vital part, the 

 sensibilities and properties of action in the rest of 

 the body, though resident for a time, have lost 

 their relations, and there is a link wanting in that 

 chain of vital actions which restores animation. 

 Here, then, there can be no resuscitation ; and the 

 death of the individual parts of the body rapidly 

 succeeds the apparent death of the body. 



We perceive now that our original conception 

 of life and the terms we use respecting it, in com- 

 mon parlance, are but ill adapted to this subject 



