IS LIFE UNIVERSAL? 137 



better understanding of the living body ? Do they 

 not, at least, enable us to perceive that the main 

 phenomena which it presents, are examples of the 

 same laws and properties with which our experience 

 of other things makes us familiar ? In other words, 

 do not we see that organic life is not a new thing, 



as compared with that which is met with in the 

 ^>*? 



inorganic world, but a new form of the same things ? 

 The same forces operate, the same laws rule, in the 

 case of organic and inorganic structures ; the results 

 are so different because the conditions differ. It has 

 been suggested before that the animal body, in 

 respect to its power of acting, presents an analogy to 

 a machine ; and the idea seems capable of receiving 

 a still wider application. What is a machine but a 

 peculiar method of applying common forces and 

 universal laws? We perceive this at once if we 

 consider any particular case. In making and using 

 a machine, we add nothing and we alter nothing, 

 in respect to the nature and properties of things. 

 We do but use for a particular end the powers which 

 exist around us, and the laws which are universally 

 operative. Nay, so far is a machine from involving 



