MACHINES AND LIVING MATTER. 69 



machinery artificially, the efforts of the philo- 

 sophic imagination tend towards such a con- 

 summation !" But surely no observer, no 

 worker at science, will feel satisfied with such 

 statements as these ; and a few will probably 

 agree with me in thinking that, although it be 

 in a sense /^philosophical, it is neither incon- 

 sistent nor absurd, to entertain the opinion that 

 the vital phenomena of living matter, which was 

 derived from pre-existing living matter, are due 

 to a peculiar power. At the same time I object 

 to accept the view that the action of a steam- 

 engine, which was not produced by a pre-exist- 

 ing steam-engine, is due to a " steam-engine 

 principle ;" and I confess it appears to me very 

 extraordinary that many advocates of the 

 physical theory of life cannot be convinced that 

 the analogy they draw between a machine — 

 which does not make itself, or grow, or multiply 

 — rand living matter, which seems to do all these 

 things, is so very slight as to be beyond every 

 limit except that of the fancy. If those who 

 support the view which Dr. Ferrier so strongly 

 advocates could explain by physics and chem- 

 istry (a) the movements, (b) the growth, and (c) 

 the division of any particle of living matter of 



