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organic force be considered as a polar force also, as the essential 
conditions for current force exist in both cases. 
Reference is next made to the results obtained during 
lacteal absorption, and those during nutrition in the muscular 
and nervous tissues, and to his experiments upon the roots 
and leaves in plants. In all these cases, although the results 
are not so decisive as in the case of secretion in animals, they 
nevertheless indicate that similar results may be obtained. 
The author then sums up with the following remarks. Let me 
now state the general conclusions that the results of all these 
experiments lead me to infer. The animal body is not a voltaic 
battery, nor an electro-magnetic machine, nor a steam-engine. 
I have been comparing the actions which take place in the 
voltaic circle and those which occur in the organised body, and 
find they are identical in all their essential conditions; that the 
existence of current force which is manifested in the one case 
exists also in the other; that the direction of the current 
depending upon the direction in which the anion and cation 
move in the circle is the same in both instances. If the mani- 
festation of current-force be evidence of polar actions in one 
case so must it be in the other; if chemical force be polar so 
must organic force be polar. I am now talking of organic force, 
the title of my paper is vital force. Vital force and organic 
force to my mind are identical terms; vital force may perhaps 
be more comprehensive as embracing the action of the nervous 
system. We can have life without nerves, as in plants. But 
what do I mean by the term life? By life I mean the series of 
changes which take place im organic matter resulting in the 
development, or evolution, of an indindual orgamsm. By an 
individual organism I mean a monad, a man, an annual plant. 
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