68 LIFE IN NATURE. 



which direction his judgment tended. " We make a 

 number of kinds of serpents, worms, flies, fishes, of 

 putrefaction, whereof some are advanced (in effect) to 

 be perfect creatures, like beasts or birds. . . . Neither 

 do we this by chance, but we know beforehand of 

 what matter and commixture, what kinds of those 

 creatures will arise." 



We dismiss, however, as premature, any discussion 

 of the origin of organic life, or consequently of the 

 vital force. But we perceive that from our present 

 point of view the vital force exists simply in a pecu- 

 liar arrangement of elements, involving a tension of a 

 special kind. By whatsoever means this arrange- 

 ment may be produced, the force thus embodied in it 

 is equally called vital. The characters of the force 

 are due to that arrangement; they flow from it 

 rather than are concerned in its production : just as 

 in the case of the other forces, such as heat or elec- 

 tricity, the peculiar properties they manifest are the 

 results and not the causes of the states of matter in 

 which they consist. 



The vital force, then, is like the other forces in 

 nature in this, that it causes, or exists in, a state of 



