ELECTRICITY AND LIFE. 159 



ence of vital electricity is incontestable, though we do not 

 yet precisely understand the conditions of this internal ex- 

 citement, and know nothing of its true relations with the 

 unity of physico-chemical operations in the living organism. 



The latter are, at all events, exceedingly complex. 

 There is in us, and in every organized being, an infinite 

 world of the most various actions going on. The forces 

 penetrating us are as manifold as the materials we are 

 moulded from. In every point of our bodies, and at ever}' 

 moment of our existence, all the energies of Nature meet 

 and unite. Yet, such order rules in the course of these 

 wonderful workings, that harmonious blended action, in- 

 stead of bewildering confusion, characterizes beings en- 

 dowed with life. Every thing in them commands and 

 answers, with balance and counterpoise. Buffon long ago 

 felt and expressed this. " The animal," he said, " com- 

 bines all the forces of Nature : his individuality is a centre 

 to which every thing is referred, a point reflecting the 

 whole universe, a world in little." A deep saying, coming 

 from the great naturalist as the flash of an intuition of 

 genius rather than the result of rigid investigation words 

 which the movement of science confirms with ever stronger 

 proofs, while borrowing from them light for its path. 



Having determined that living bodies are in themselves 

 sources of the electric fluid, we next inquire into the nature 

 of the effects produced in the animal organism by electricity 

 under different forms. The atmosphere contains a variable 

 quantity of positive electricity ; the earth itself is always 

 charged with negative electricity. It is not yet precisely 

 known how this diffused and silent force originates. Phys- 

 icists suppose that it proceeds from vegetation and the 

 evaporation of water. Becquerel has quite lately set forth 

 a number of reasons, more or less plausible, for the belief 

 that the chief part of atmospheric electricity is derived 

 from the sun, and diffused by it into space together with 



