APPENDIX 



BY JAMES COPLAND, M. I). 



CHAPTER. I. 



Of Life. 

 Note A. 



PtfYSioiOGiSTS are divided into those admitting a principle of life, and those attribu- 

 ting the vital phenomena to organization solely the latter class contending that life 

 pre-supposes organization, the former that organization pre -supposes the presence of 

 life. An attentive consideration of the phenomena presented by the whole range of or- 

 ganized bodies, and a fair contrast instituted between these and the changes which inani- 

 mate matter exhibits, will readily convince the most unbiassed by preconceived notions, 

 which of the two doctrines to prefer. 



Those who contend that life is the result of organization, ought to explain in what 

 manner the organization itself took place ; they should show the means employed to 

 produce the disposition of parts, which they conceive requisite to give rise to vital 

 phenomena. If they deny the primary influence of a vital power, associated with the 

 particles of matter, let them explain by what other agency the different atoms can as- 

 sume organic actions. All effects must have a cause, and it is better to assign 

 one according to which difficulties may be accounted for, than to contend for the effi- 

 ciency of properties or powers, of the existence of which we have no evidence, and 

 which, even granting them to exist, can only be considered as inferior agents, or cer- 

 tain manifestations of a vital principle. 



With respect to this class of Physiologists, it may be remarked generally ; 1st. That 

 explanations of organization, which admit not of the primary and controlling influ- 

 ence of vitality, however applicable they may seem to those who look only at the gross 

 relations of things, cannot satisfactorily account for the origin and nature of the pheno- 

 mena to which they relate ; for, however terms may be substituted, or illustrations mul- 

 tiplied, the changes which continually take place in living bodies cannot be explained 

 by means of the laws and affinities which characterize the combinations of inorganized 

 matter. 



2d, In order to explain the phenomena, which are more justly ascribed to a vital 

 principle, the supporters of the doctrine of organism have recourse to the substitution 

 of properties, occult-qualties, impulses, and motions ; and when required to show 

 wherein these qualities, impulses and properties are different from those which we ob- 

 serve in inorganized matter, and are there subjected to our experience, they endea- 

 vour to get rid of the difficulty by denominating them vital, thus tacitly admitting the 

 very principle, in the place of which such insufficient properties are attempted to be 

 substituted ; and after all, without the smallest success in preventing a recurrence to 

 this principle, of which all these properties, admitting their existence, are nothing 

 else than the results : for, however we may denominate them, we merelv substitute ex- 

 pressions which (if they convey any meaning) imply only the existence of certain effects 

 or operations, which are inferior agents or instruments, under the controul of vitality h: 

 the production of the organic phenomena. 



From this view, therefore, of the subject, it appears that the argument used against 

 the existence of a vital principle is more verbal than real. The organists cannot even 

 prove the basis of their doctrine, for they cannot show that organization came into ex- 

 istence before the effects which they impute to it ; and while they bestow propertied and 



A. 



