FLETCHER AND LEWES. 177 



living beings, and not life in the abstract. This 

 applies, for example, to the otherwise excellent defi- 

 nition of G. H. Lewes. " Life is a series of definite 

 and successive changes, both of structure and compo- 

 sition, which take place within an individual without 

 destroying its identity."* Even Fletcher's definition 

 applies to individuals when he uses the term " organ- 

 ism" for the organized being as a whole; but not 

 when he defines life as " the sum of the actions of 

 organized beings resulting directly from their vitality 

 so acted on " [by pabulum, conditions, and stimuli]. 

 Observe here the word directly, for it is only thus that 

 we can define life in the abstract, and separate what 

 is vital from non- vital in functions to which both kinds 

 of action contribute.^ Fletcher uses the term organ- 



*In his last work, "Problems of Life and Mind/' published in 1874, 

 since he has apparently become acquainted with Fletcher and Beale, 

 although he does not mention them, he says : " The movements of the 

 bioplasm constitute vitality" (p. 118). In spite of the remarkable 

 clearness of thought and accuracy of expression in general of this 

 author, I must point out that this mode of speaking is not in agreement 

 with the definition of terms given by Fletcher at part ii. p. 5. The 

 term vitality can only be applied to the property or capacity of under- 

 going certain changes. What is meant is life, but it would not be 

 correct to speak of that as movement. The vitality of the bioplasm is 

 a certain state of composition which renders it capable of undergoing 

 certain changes of composition which constitute life. No doubt move- 

 ments are essential to those changes, but they do not constitute life. 



t For example, in a vertebrate animal, with circulating and digestive 

 organs, the resistance and support of the skeleton, and the tenacity 

 and elasticity of the blood-vessels, are physical attributes, but the for- 

 mation and maintenance of these and all other tissues are vital. The 

 first stages of the digestion of food are mere chemical action, but the 

 absorption by the villi and conversion of it into blood, are vital. The 

 perception of stimuli is vital, but their transmission through the nerves 

 is physical. And so on through all functions. There is probably, or 

 rather certainly, no individual, however low in the scale, which has not 

 something physical and chemical in tbe " sum of its functions," besides 

 the distinctively vita 1 . 



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