388 VITALITY. 



originally stored away in the egg being thus dissipated in the production of 

 chemical and mechanical changes. In the case of the egg possessed of vitality, 

 a portion of the organized molecules will also run down into vapors and gases, 

 which will gradually escape through the perforations of the shell, and will thus, 

 as in the previous case, evolve an equivalent amount of power ; hut this, instead 

 of being dissipated in mere mechanical or chemical effects, will be expended, 

 under the directing principle of vitality, in elevating to a higher degree of or- 

 ganization the molecules of the remainder, and in transforming them into organs 

 of sensation, perception, and locomotion ; in short, in the production of a ma- 

 chine precisely similar to those constructed by the intellectual operations of man 

 when guiding or directing the powers of nature. If we examine the transform- 

 ation as it goes on from day to day, we shall see that it does not consist in a 

 simple aggregation of particles in the production of the organs we have men- 

 tioned, hut in preliminary arrangements, such as canals, and provisional, after- 

 wards to be obliterated, and the adoption of means for a more remote end, the 

 whole indicating an intention realized in the sentient, living, moving animal. 



This vital principle, from strict analogy, cannot be considered as an essential 

 property of matter, since it is only continued by transmission from one living 

 being to another. It is true that it ceases to manifest itself when a slight de- 

 rangement takes place in the organized material with which it is connected, and 

 death ensues ; but this is precisely analogous to the manifestation of the think- 

 ing, willing principle within us, the existence of which is revealed to us by our 

 own consciousness as a primordial truth, beyond which nothing can be more 

 certain. 



