INTRODUCTION. 13 



Accordingly, they are all composed of streams 

 and plates, or of fibres and solid laminae, which en- 

 close the liquids in their interstices. It is in the 

 liquids that the motion is the most rapid, unceasing, 



of his writings, appear by no means precise or consistent, viewing 

 them as explanations of the nature of these phenomena. But, after 

 an attentive consideration of the scope of his observations, and of 

 the views to which they lead, we cannot conclude that they are stated 

 with any other intention than to serve as illustrations of functions, or 

 operations, which, although they have a general place in organized 

 bodies, must, nevertheless, proceed from some other cause still 

 more general. 



These illustrations, however, which Cuvier has adopted having 

 been eagerly laid hold of by materialists as explanations of the 

 manifestations of organized matter, and having been uniformly 

 quoted by them as such in favour of their doctrine, he has been 

 therefore ranked as one of its supporters. No one, we believe, 

 will deny that functions of a kind with, or similar to, those which 

 Cuvier has designated in the text, have a very general place 

 in organized bodies ; but it is evident, from the tenor of his 

 remarks, and even from his affixing the epithet vital to them, that 

 although he thus assigned them a very general operation, yet he 

 did not consider them to be sufficient to explain the nature or ori- 

 gin of the manifestations which such bodies display, which topics 

 indeed, he seems to us to have left entirely uninvestigated. 



As the illustrations which Cuvier has adopted appear to many 

 to favour opinions which, we believe, they were not intended to 

 support, and as they may have that tendency when assumed as 

 explanations of the nature and origin of the phenomena to which 

 they relate, especially when detached from their contexts, and 

 vaguely assigned as the basis of speculations on these topics, we 

 shall offer a very few remarks respecting them; and we shall, 

 therefore, view them in the acceptation which materialists assign 

 them, in order to point out their insufficiency to explain the ma- 

 nifestations which the organized creation presents. 



1st. Neither the illustrations which Cuvier has given in the 

 text, nor any other modes of illustration, which do not admit the 

 controlling influence of vitality, however varied and applicable 

 they may seem to those who look merely at the gross relations of 



