ORGANIC AND INORGANIC FORCES. 911 



cal, dynamic, thermic, electric, and photic. The material substratum 

 concerned, consists of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, 

 oxygen, and so forth, all being elements which exist in the inorganic 

 world. The phenomena are invariably produced, only in connection 

 with certain changes in the condition of these elements and their com- 

 pounds. Hence, it seems probable, first, that these organic manifes- 

 tations of force are likewise correlated within themselves; and, further, 

 that they are also correlated with the corresponding manifestations of 

 force displayed in the inorganic world ; that they are the same both 

 in degree and kind ; and that they are both derived from a common 

 cosrnical energy, the organic modes being, for a time, operative in a 

 special sphere of action, but returnable again to the inorganic store. 



By including, in one view, the Vegetable and Animal Kingdoms of 

 the Organic world, the conversion of inorganic materials into organ- 

 ized matter, and its restoration back to the inorganic world, may be 

 readily traced. The carbonic acid, the ammonia represented in the 

 urea, and the water, which, with certain salts, are the ultimate prod- 

 ucts of the vito-chemical processes of animal life, are the very sub- 

 stances needed for the nutrition of plants. They are themselves act- 

 ually unorganized, or inorganic ; they are assimilated and deoxidized 

 by growing plants, under the influence of solar light and the formative 

 agencies of the vegetable cells, and, besides building up those cells, 

 they are combined into all the higher chemical products necessary for 

 the food of animals, whether amyloid, oleoid, or albuminoid. The 

 Herbivorous animals, supported by these products, transfer them to 

 the Omnivorous and Carnivorous animals, including Man himself. 

 By animals, as we have seen, these various products, oxidized by the 

 air, once more revert to the same simple chemical compounds destitute 

 of organization. Now, the elementary substances, which enter into 

 the ascending or progressive metamorphoses in plants, pass out, after 

 their retrogressive metamorphoses in animals, with all their properties 

 and qualities unchanged. Engaged in the organic vortex, vegetable 

 and animal, they still retain their nature. However frequently sub- 

 jected to this temporary diversion from the inorganic state, they are 

 unchanged. It is difficult to suppose that in their condition as parts 

 of organized bodies, vegetable or animal, they manifest mere simili- 

 tudes of their inorganic forces, which they afterwards lay aside ; but 

 it is easy to comprehend, that they may carry with them, into their 

 new position, all their properties and energies, and exercise them in 

 the manifestation of those phenomena, which are identical in both 

 Departments of Nature. 



The methods and reasoning employed in physical research, in the 

 examination of the various external natural phenomena, may be ap- 

 plied to the study of the corresponding phenomena in physiological 

 science. As physico-chemical action, in the inorganic world, is corre- 

 lated with mechanical work, heat, electricity, and light, so, in the 

 organic world, vito-chemical changes may equally be associated with 

 nervo-muscular or dynamic, thermic, electric, and photic phenomena, 

 and even with the actions usually referred to the so-called nervous 

 force. Thus, a chemical change of blood or tissue, or of both, is es- 



