139 
function always results, either from some struc- 
tural alteration (although this may be ofa kind 
imperceptible to our senses), or from some 
change in the character of the stimuli by which 
the properties of the organ are called into action. 
There is no difficulty, therefore, in accounting 
on this view for the death of the whole system 
on the cessation of any one function ; since any 
perturbation in the train of vital actions will 
not merely disturb the regularity of all, but, if 
sufficiently serious, will check those nutrient 
processes on the uninterrupted continuance of 
which the vital properties of the several parts 
depend; the degree of that dependence being 
proportioned to their respective tendencies 
to spontaneous decomposition if not thus 
renewed. Still, the vital properties of in- 
dividual parts may be retained for a consi- 
derable period after general or somatic death 
(see Deatu) has taken place; and vital actions 
may continue, as already stated, so long as the 
conditions which they require in the living 
body are supplied. So far from a dead body 
having “all the organization it ever had whilst 
alive,” as has been often maintained by the 
upholders of a separate vital principle, it 
will be found, on a more minute survey, that 
no single portion of it is existing under the 
same circumstances in these two states;* and 
there is good reason to believe that those agents 
which destroy life with the least apparent or- 
ganic change, produce structural alterations 
which are not the less important because more 
minute. Some instances of this kind will be 
presently noticed (Sect. V.). We must confess 
ourselves at a loss to understand how the gra- 
dual death of individual parts of the body can 
be explained upon the doctrine of the vital 
principle, without supposing that it may be 
split into as many individual existences as there 
are organs in the system ; such an idea would 
then coincide with that of the swperadded pro- 
perties of which we have endeavoured to show 
the fallacy, and all the arguments derived from 
the unity of its operations would fall to the 
ground. 
One often repeated objection to the doctrine 
that vitality results from organisation may, we 
think, be easily disposed of, as it is more spe- 
cious than real. It is considered by some to 
be a sufficient disproof of this doctrine, to refer 
to the universally-admitted fact, that the exist- 
ence of organisation implies a previous exist- 
ence of life; and thence to infer that life 
cannot be at the same time the cause and the 
consequence. But this is a sort of dox 
which reminds us of the question that puzzled 
the profound casuists of yore—* Whether does 
the bird spring from the egg or the egg from the 
bird?” It is evident that the life of any indi- 
vidual being may be the consequence of the 
action of stimuli upon its organism, just as the 
bird is produced by warmth from the egg ; and 
yet that the organisation of its structure may 
be the result of the previous existence of life 
in the parent, just as the egg is produced by a 
bird. We are only referred backwards, there- 
fore, in our enquiry into the efficient cause of 
* See Prichard on the Vital Principle, p. 117. 
LIFE. 
Sas 
the a of vital p to the. 
creation of each organism. Here some we 
maintain that the Creator formed a vital p 
ciple or organic agent, and then set it te 
ganise the body. But we appear hat 
is an assumption which we have no rig 
make; and that itis more philosophic: 
cause more consistent with what we else: 
witness, to suppose that the Creator, i 
forming matter, endowed it with prop 
virtue of which it became capab 
biting vital actions or life, when first cor 
by Him into an organised structure; 4 
the Parent of all thus impressed uw 
elements of which each created 
composed, the spirit® of the laws , 
in future govern its growth and 
just as He impressed upon the bodies 
posing the planetary system that mo 
action whose subsequent continuance has 
us the notion of the laws of gravitati 
motion. To account for the perpet 
the race, we require nothing but the cont 
operation of those laws; in other 
continuance of the same mode of 
which particles of inorganic matter 
sively organised, and, gud organised, b 
pable of performing vital actions, a_ 
which consists in the production of corr 
ing changes on other materials. 
The actions performed by living b 
not all, however, immediately depend 
the operation of the vital properti 
organs ; since many are evidently con 
to physical laws, and the properties 
gans by which they are performed are ¢ 
to them with many kinds of inorganic 1 
and are exhibited by dead as well as b 
organised substances, as long as ne o 
change takes place in their composition. 
this kind are the property of elasticity 
rious tissues, especially certain of a ligame 
character; and that by which endosmose 
place through certain membranes. 1 
observed, however, that the existence 0 
properties in the tissues of the living 
obviously depends upon a certain 
of their ultimate molecules, which can 6 
maintained by the exercise of their m 
functions; and that any irregularity y i 
latter, still more their entire cessatior 
speedily impair the properties, by 
course to the constant tendency to decor 
tion in the tissues which exhibit them, 
further, it may be remarked that in | 
stances these properties are dependent fe 
excitement to action in the livi 
those truly vital processes whi 
nical contrivances or chemical ope 
produce or imitate. 
Between these two extreme classes ¢ 
nomena,—the purely physical, and 
vital—there is a third, of a very pect 
perplexing character. We allude 
tions concerned in preparing the 
organisation out of the aliment 
the system. Many are dis to 
as of a vital character, and to 
<i 
. 
ONSIG 
* Horschel’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 87. 
