148 LIFE IN NATURE. 



that affinity as its basis and condition, is peculiar to 

 animal and vegetable bodies, and may be called, for 

 the sake of distinction, "organic life." In this kind 

 of life it is evident that any forms of matter which 

 are constituted according to the laws of chemical 

 affinity, do not partake. Such are the mass of our 

 own globe, and in all probability the other bodies 

 known to us as the stars and planets. These are 

 not partakers of the life which we have called 

 organic. 



But if we think of nature on a larger scale, we 

 remember that there is another property, or tendency 

 of matter, cognate to chemical affinity, but affecting 

 masses as well as atoms. Why should not gravity 

 afford the conditions requisite for an organic relation 

 of the masses of which the universe consists ? We 

 know there also exists a force opposed to gravity, 

 which produces an arrangement of the heavenly 

 bodies in relations different from that in which 

 gravity tends to place them. Why should not this 

 force constitute, in respect to them, a true analogue 

 of the vital force ? It has been suggested that the 

 distances of the stars from each other are probably 



