98 NATURE AND LIFE. 



ner, and by what mode of comparison with known things, 

 could we represent the influence of such ideas upon organic 

 materials ? The intrinsic, sufficient, and determining cause 

 of vital phenomena, we are forced to confess, after the dem- 

 onstration Robin gives of them, lies in the properties 

 themselves of organized substance. These phenomena are 

 equations of a very high order, infinitely complicated for- 

 mulas, of which these properties are the first factors, which 

 we cannot reduce. In a word, anatomical elements have in 

 themselves their principles of action and direction, exactly 

 as the mineral molecules which form crystals have in them- 

 selves the principle of the harmony which they produce. 

 The external form, that is to say, the contour, just as the 

 internal form, that is, the organization, is the consequence 

 of spontaneous principles of energy peculiar to the ultimate 

 particles of life. As to the principle of these principles, 

 their first cause, impenetrable darkness hides it from our 

 sight. 



No doubt, when we cast the first glance on the totality 

 of animated beings, it is with difficulty that we resist the 

 thought that a breath as intelligent as mighty has com- 

 municated itself to them, impregnates, vivifies, and urges 

 them in a course of which it knows the end (mens agitat 

 molem). Seeing the most perfect and delicate organs grow 

 out of a coarse and shapeless-looking pulp, we are almost 

 irresistibly driven to look on high for the workman of that 

 amazing fabrication. But if the mind be ever so little pene- 

 trating, it must soon give up its first momentary illusion in 

 presence of the testimony of facts. If it takes the trouble 

 to go to the bottom of things, and to exhaust their details ; 

 if it chooses to follow step by step the development of life 

 in the ovule and the embryo, to study the functions of the 

 system, in healthy animals and in diseased animals, it will 

 recognize the spontaneity and the activity of the natural 

 forces acting in themselves and by themselves in eternal 



