IS LIFE UNIVERSAL? 141 



perfect individualization of the creature; its being 

 marked off from the rest of nature, and placed in 

 an attitude of freedom to use and subordinate her 

 powers. 



But this subordination is not effected by the 

 superaddition of a new power in living things. The 

 subjection of the physical to the vital forces resembles 

 rather a voluntary self-control than a coercion from 

 without. The power on each side is the same. Does 

 not the following passage from Coleridge, indeed, 

 convey an argument that finally disposes of the idea 

 that the force of organic bodies can be essentially 

 different from that of the surrounding world ; that 

 being the very force which they live by assimilating 

 or drawing into themselves ? 



"To a reflecting mind the very fact, that the 

 powers peculiar to life in living animals, include 

 coherence, elasticity, &c. (or, in the words of a 

 recent publication ( that living matter exhibits these 

 physical properties ') would demonstrate, that in the 

 truth of things they are of the same kind, and that 

 both classes are but degrees, and different dignities 

 of one and the same tendency. For the latter are 



