VITALITY. 387 



derived from the air by tlie decomposing agency of the impulses from the sun, 

 and that when burned in the engine or consumed in the body they are again re- 

 solved into air, giving out in this resolution an amount of energy equivalent to 

 that received from the sun during the process of their growth. All the mate- 

 rials of the crust of the earth, with the exception of coal and organic matter, 

 are in a state of inertness, and, like the burnt slag of the furnace, have expended 

 their energy, and in this condition of inertness they would forever remain, were 

 it not for extraneous influences, principally the sun. 



From this point of view the phenomena we have been considering consist 

 merely in the transfer of power from one body to another, and from a wide gen- 

 eralization from all the facts the conclusion has been arrived at that energy is 

 neither lost nor gained in the transfer; and, pursuing the same train of refleciiou, 

 we are finally led to the result that all power is derived from the primordial, 

 unbalanced attraction and repulsion of the atoms of matter. 



In the gradual development of the principles we have given there has been 

 a tendency to extend the views we have presented too far, and to refer all the 

 phenomena of life to the mechanical or chemical forces of nature. Although it 

 has been, as we think, conclusively proved that from food, and food alone, come 

 all the different kinds of physical force which are manifest in animal life, yet, 

 as the author of the preceding paper has shown, there is something else neces- 

 sary to life, and this something, though it cannot properly be called a force, 

 may be denominated the vit;!l principle. Without the influence of this princi- 

 ple the undirected physical powers produce mechanical arrangements and assume 

 a state of permanent equilibrium by bringing matter into crystalline forms or into 

 a condition of simple aggregation, while under its mysterious influence the par- 

 ticles of matter are built up into an unstable condition in the form of organic 

 molecules. While, therefore, we may refer the changes which are here produced, 

 or, in other words, the work performed, to the expenditure of the physical powers 

 of heat, chemical action, &c., we must admit the necessity of something beyond 

 these, which, from the analogy with mental phenomena, we may denominate 

 the directing principle. Although we cannot perhaps positively say in the 

 present state of science that this directing principle will not manifest itself when 

 all the necessary conditions are present, yet in the ordinary phenomena of life 

 which are everywhere exhibited around us, organization is derived from vitality 

 and not vitality from organization. That the vital or directing principle is not a 

 physical power which perfoi ms work, or that it cannot be classed with heat or 

 chemical action, is evident from the fact that it may be indefinitely extended — 

 from a single acorn a whole forest of oaks may result. 



The principles of which we have here endeavored to give an exposition are 

 strikingly illustrated in the transformation of the agg when subjected to a slightly 

 elevated temperature. The egg of a bird, for example, as we know, consists 

 of a congeries of organized molecules or vesicles, enclosed in a calcareous shell, 

 thickly punctured with minute holes, through which the oxygen of the air can 

 enter, and vapors and gases escape. Let us observe the difi'erence of changes 

 which take place in two newly-laid eggs, one of which is not possessed with 

 vitality, and the other is endowed with this mysterious principle. Both of these 

 eggs are in a condition of power, the carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, &c., 

 of which their organized molecules are composed, arc in a state of unstable 

 equilibrium, and ready, when set in motion by a slight increase of temperature, 

 to rush into the more stable compounds of carbonic acid, vapor of water, &c., by 

 chemical attraction. While the eggs are in an unchanged condition they possess 

 the same amount of what is called potential energy, which in both cases will be 

 expended in the transformation of the materials ; but how difierent will be the 

 effects produced. In the case of the egg deprived of vitality, all the organized 

 molecules will be converted into gases and vapors, with the development of heat 

 and au elastic energy, in some cases sufficient to burst the shell, the power 



