LECTURE Vi. 260 



springs of the vital actions are removed. 

 There can be no supply of blood or nervous 

 energy? for the detached parts are cut off 

 from their sources. There is no manifesta- 

 tion of the existence of life in the detached 

 part, except by the delay of putrefaction, 

 and the continuance, for a time, of the 

 phasnomena of irritability. 



To this striking evidence of the exis- 

 tence of life in detached parts, I directed 

 your attention in the introductory lectures; 

 nor do I perceive any reason to add to 

 what was then said, in order to persuade 

 an unprejudiced person that it is a super- 

 added power, only inherent in the visible 

 structures to which it is connected. But 

 on the present occasion, I would ask, whe- 

 ther irritability alone is capable of causing 

 all the phaenomena which take place in the 

 reproductive processes I have now referred 

 to? Can it alone produce assimilation 

 and decomposition, and all the varieties 

 of growth and organization ? Those who 

 think the phaenomena of life depend on 

 organization, must necessarily suppose as 

 many kinds of life as of structures, and still 



