VITALITY 383 



Such difficulties arise in various directions when we begin to apply the laws 

 which govt-rn things inanimate to thi^ phenomena of life. 



It is well known that the common hydra may be reproduced by a small por- 

 tion of its body severed from the i-est, or even by a portion of one of its tentacles. 

 On the supposition that known forces, or forces aualngous to these, are alone 

 concerned in this reproduction, it follows that in the severed portion must have 

 existed physical peculiarities corresponding with every part of the entire animal ; 

 or, in other words, that the prototype of the perfect form to be evolved must have 

 been in the particle capable of being thus developed; for known forces have no 

 specific predilections of this kind, and except the bit contained that which 

 could initiate the development in a particular direction, there is no conceivable 

 reason why these forces should develop it into a hydra more than into an amoeba 

 or a rotifer. 



On similar grounds the seed must contain the perfect initium of the future 

 plant to its most minute organs. The color spot on the petal of a pelargonium 

 could in no conceivable way have been produced through the agencies of chem- 

 ical affinities, heat, electricity, and the like, except from the existence of some 

 corresponding physical starting point in the seed. This is admitted by some 

 who question the existence of a vital principle. 



On the other hand, it may freely be admitted that if this wonderfully compli- 

 cated structure did exist in the seed, it is by no means certain that we shr.uld 

 be able to discover any traces of it. Our being unable to find it is no proof that 

 it may not be there, unless we can show that in our investigation of the seed we 

 have detected the ultimate forms of matter. 



Here it is important to define what is meant by the existence, in the embryo 

 prototype, of a structure corresponding in all respects with the future animal or 

 plant to be developed. It is not contended that in the seed, for instance, the 

 prototype must fix in every respect the form and dimensions of the future plant; 

 for in the course of growth the plant is submitted to the variable influences of 

 heat and moisture and light, and these will affect its ultimate condition, or it 

 may suffer distortion from the attacks of insects or from mechanical pressure. 

 Still, under all these possible influences, every portion, every fibre of the living 

 plant will be what it would not have been but from some peculiar character in 

 the seed which initiated its production. 



There is not a leaf on an oak tree but must have had its own share in the 

 acorn from which the tree sprang. For let us remember we are trying th,;* 

 consequences of the utter exclusion of a vital principle as a special thing; M'e have 

 only to do with the results of the actions of known forces, which have no more 

 tendency to produce a leaf than to produce an animal, except from the direction 

 given to their energies by the original inilium. In the action of these forces the 

 result indicates the antecedent as much as the antecedent the result. It matters 

 not how many steps backward we have to go. The leaf takes its character 

 from the bud, not, let us remember, by the influence of a vital force, but by a 

 process of development brought about by heat, electricity, light, moisture, car- 

 bonic acid, &c., acting on the bud Then, I submit, the leaf in all its parts, 

 down to its veins and stomata, must have been initiated by some special physical 

 character in the bud. What have heat, electicity, &c., to do with forming veins 

 and stomata? Given the proper nucleus, these forces are quite competent to 

 develop any number of organs, but no particle of the leaf must fail of having 

 had its type in the bud, else, instead of that particle, there would have been an 

 hiatus, or something of a different, kind. 



The bud imposes the same conditions on the twig ; but, in fact, the conditions 

 multiply as we recede, for the twig has to furnish the starting points for the 

 bud and all its leaves; the twig, in like manner, looks back to the bough, till, 

 by the time we arrive at the acorn, it is useless to attempt to burden the mind 

 with thinking of all its littl shell must contain.' Yet we have only gone back 



