220 BEALE'S VITAL POWER A DEMIURGOS. 



then spontaneously take on in perfection their pre- 

 ordained functions. Such a power, if separable from 

 matter, must be an entity, and not only one with 

 power, but intelligence a demiurgos, in fact. At the 

 same time, Beale expressly cuts himself off from the 

 more consistent forms of the older vital principlists, 

 for he rejects the vegetative, sensitive, and rational 

 principles, which, being central, might be supposed 

 more capable of watching over the harmony of the 

 separate parts, and the unity of the individual. On 

 the contrary, Beale's vital power inhabits only the 

 individual separate molecules, and cannot be trans- 

 ferred to the smallest distance, nor pass from one piece 

 of matter to another, except by descent. He is thus- 

 in exactly the same, difficulty as the physiological 

 materialists were as to the process of building up of 

 the higher orders of individualities and constituting 

 species, before the theory of Darwin, for on this he 

 looks askance. Unless, indeed, he considers the com- 

 munication by descent a saving clause, and thus the 

 development of all parts from the ovum by growth 

 and subdivision gives the vital power that central har- 

 monizing influence ; but again, if so, what is it but the 

 old vital principle ? The supposition of such a power 

 is no help in the explanation of any phenomena, as it 

 stands in need of explanation just as much as they do, 

 and we fear it is nothing but one more example of 

 "the insuperable tendency of human mind to per- 

 sonify its abstractions."* Its position over against the 



* Fletcher frequently brings forward this saying, quoting from 

 Barthez, -who gives us one of the best illustrations of the truth of it,. 

 for he was the inventor of the term " vital principle," and the meaning 

 attached to it. 



