LINNEAN SOCIETY OE LONDOlSr. XXI 



the detached bud first shoots out its oM^n roots, not when the seed 

 bursts, or the egg-shell is broken, or the young animal is born ; for 

 the bud, the embryo or foetus, had a previous existence, more or 

 less independent of, or connected with, the parent, according to 

 species. It is not at the moment of fertilization or impregnation ; 

 for the bud, and even the ovum in cases of parthenogenesis, may 

 grow into independent beings without ever being impregnated. 

 Nor can ovu* most powerful instruments perceive the moment when 

 the first embryo-cell receives that impress which has irrevocably 

 determined the form which the perfect being is to assume, within 

 those narrow limits which neither impregnation nor any other in- 

 fluences set in action by the sun can ever make it exceed. And 

 if life is once stopped, if interrupted, be it for a moment, no force 

 can set it in action again. It may lie dormant for a long (but not 

 perhaps indefinite) succession of years ; its action may be absolutely 

 imperceptible or limited to the resistance of disorganization, until 

 recalled into more active operation by the action of the sun on 

 surrounding influences ; but if during the dormant period (of the. 

 seed, egg, &c.) life has once ceased, nothing will restore it : the 

 action of the same sun upon the same surrounding influences will 

 produce decomposition, not growth. The word "force" may indeed 

 be properly limited to mechanical force, and it may be incorrect 

 to say that life is a force different in quality from other forces ; but, 

 as we must have some term equivalent to the popular sense, we 

 may call life a, power different in quality from force. Dr. Carpen- 

 ter (p. 80) proposes to term it a germinal capacity ; but it is surely 

 much more than a capacity^ to be paraphrased as the " power of 

 utilizing, after its own particular fashion, the heat which it re- 

 ceives, and of applying it as a constructive power to the building 

 up of its fabric after its characteristic type " (p. 87). There is 

 here this diff"erence between the term and its paraphrase, that the 

 one expresses a passive, the other an active idea. 



" Vegetable substances, brought into contact with their beloved 

 oxygen in the animal body, will burn within it as a fire burns in 

 the grate." True; but that burning will be fermentation and 

 corruption, unless brought under the influence of the living parts 

 of the body to be converted into growth. I say growth, not huild- 

 mg ; for building the brain and the forest is a metaphor which 

 must lead the unscientific mind far astray from all that science 

 has as yet taught us. Nothing in life is built, in the ordinary 

 " sense " of the term ; no portion, no single cell, has been externally 

 added to a living being ; everything has grown out of it, every new 

 cell is gradually compounded within a living cell. 



