278 ALL ORGANIZATION 



organ, nor even a part of that compound in any 

 way: it is a different substance. 



Wherever there is organization in a state of 

 activity there is life ; and perhaps the best defi- 

 nition of material life, taken in its most extended 

 sense, is the faculty, or power of producing or 

 maintaining an organization, a system of local 

 parts performing different functions, but all con- 

 ducing to some effect which is never, in any in- 

 stance, produced by inorganic matter, how active 

 soever that matter may be in its own way. Or- 

 ganized substances have not. the permanence of 

 inorganic matter. That remains unaltered if kept 

 from the action of every thing but itself ; but or- 

 ganized substances, if taken out of those situations 

 and circumstances which are favourable to them, 

 die : and so far as we know, they are all subject 

 to natural death. When one of them perishes, 

 either from natural decay or from accident, that 

 same one is gone for ever, never to return ; and 

 there are no artificial means, nor do we know of 

 any process in nature, by which it can be got 

 back again. 



But although that may be regarded as univer- 

 sally true, of every organized being as such, yet 

 the matter of which that being is composed is not 

 lost, by the death of the organized being, any 

 more than if it had been matter in an inorganic 

 state. That alone would suffice to show that 

 there is something more than matter or the 

 common properties of matter, in the organized 

 being. But there is farther proof ; we know of 

 no instance in which an organized being is pro- 

 duced, unless from a former organized being. It 



