INTRODUCTION. 1 1 



Of Living Bangs, and of Organisation in general. 



To form a just idea of the nature of life, whether 

 vegetable or animal, we should first observe its 

 effects in those bodies where such effects are the 

 most manifest, obvious, and simple. The result of 

 such investigation will convince us, that life con- 

 sists in a faculty possessed by certain corporeal 

 combinations, of continuing for a time under one 

 determined form, by attracting incessantly from 

 without, and identifying with the matter of their 

 own composition, particles of extraneous substances, 

 and by rendering to the surrounding elements por- 

 tions of their own. 



Life may further be considered as a vortex more 

 or less rapid, more or less complicated, the action 

 of which is constant, and is always on particles of 

 the same description ; and as all the individual com- 

 ponent particles of a living body are thus in a state 

 of perpetual mutation, constantly going and coming, 

 we may be permitted to assert, that the form of 

 such a body is more essentially and properly its 

 own than the substance, the one is co-extensive 

 with its existence, the other is gradually but inces- 

 santly changing. 



While this movement continues, the body in which , 

 it is carried on is living; when the movement 

 ceases — to return no more — the body dies, and the 

 elements which compose it become immediately, 



