LIVING BEINGS— ORGANIZATION IN GENERAL. 



combinations of actions must be secured, before there can be sensation and motion, 

 thought and happiness." 



]\Iuny attempts have been made to account for the vital principle, but hitherto all 

 these have proved abortive. It is possible, that various functions of the animal framo 

 may hereafter be discovered to proceed from mechanical or from chemical laws ; hut, 

 we believe, that the ultimate springs of the phenomena of Hfe will ever remain con- 

 cealed from human knowledge. 



In order to form a just idea of tlie essential conditions of life, we must 

 first examine those beings, which are the most simple in the scale of crea- 

 tion ; and we shall readily perceive that these vital conditions consist, in 

 a power possessed by certain bodies, for a period of time only, of exist- 

 ing in a determinate form ; of continually drawing into their composition 

 a part of the surrounding substances ; and of returning back, to the in- 

 fluence of the general laws of matter, certain portions of their own mate- 

 rials. 



These phenomena are exhibited by the conferva rivularis, a small bundle of green 

 filaments, finer than hair, found in rivulets and stagnant pools. Being without root or 

 leaves, it is simply attached by a broad surface to the margin of the water. While 

 life exists, it increases in size and weight, throws out filaments like branches, assimi- 

 lates the pai'ticles of water, and of other inorganic substances around it, into vegetable 

 matter, and lays them down in an oblong cellular form. In animals and plants, nutri- 

 tion is the effect of an internal power ; their growth is a development from within. In 

 minerals, on the contrary, growth goes on by the external deposition of successive 

 strata or layers ; whilst organized bodies, by means of their vital power, grow and in- 

 crease by the assimilation of different substances. The stalactite, once supposed to 

 bo an exception, is now proved to be subject to the ordinary laws of inorganic mat- 

 ter. 



Thus life may be compared to a whirlpool of variable rapidity and in- 

 tricacy, drawing in particles of the same kind, and always in the same 

 direction; but where the same individual particles are alternately entering 

 and departing. The form of living bodies seems, therefore, to be more 

 essentially their own, than the matt-er of which they are composed. 



The matter forming the bones of animals has been ascertained to undergo a very 

 considerable change in a few days ; and from this fact the probability of a corres- 

 ponding change in the other parts of the frame is inferred. The very singular rapi- 

 dity with which this change is effected was accidentally discovered. Certain animals 

 were fed with madder {rubia tinctoTum), a plant cultivated for its red dye; and in 

 twenty-four hours all tlieir bones were found to be deeply tinged with its colour. On 

 continuing the same food, the colour became very deep ; but upon leaving it off, the 

 colour was completely removed in a very few days. By alternately changing the 

 food, the bones were found to be marked with concentric rings of the red dye, accord- 

 Hig to the number of times that the change was made. These phenomena, so far sur- 

 passing any thing that could have been anticipated, are well calculated to convey an 

 idea of the extraordinary rapidity with which the particles of the animal frame are 

 removed, while the form remains without any apparent alteration. 



While this movement continues, the body wherein it takes place lives ; 

 when it entirely ceases, the body dies. After death, the elements which 

 compose the living frame, being surrendered to the influence of the ordinary 

 chemical affinities, begin to separate ; and the dissolution of the once living 

 body speedily follows. It was, therefore, by the vital movement, that dis- 

 solution had been previously arrested, and that the elements of organized 

 bodies were preserved in a state of temporary union. AU bodies cease to 

 live after a certain period of time, the duration of which is fixed for each 

 species. Death appears to be a necessary eifect of life ; and the very 

 exercise of the vital power gradually alters the structure of the bod}', so 

 as to render its longer existence impossible. The frame undergoes a re- 

 gular and continual change, as long as life remains. Its bulk first increases 

 in certain proportions, and to certain limits, fixed for each species, and for 

 the several organs of each individual ; and then, in the course of time, 

 many of its parts become more dense or solid. This last change appears 

 to be the immediate cause of natural death. 



If different living bodies be examined with attention, we shall find 

 them to be composed of an organic structure, which is obviously essential 

 to such a whirlpool, as that to which we have already compared the 

 vital action. There must not only be solid particles to maintain the 

 forms of their bodies, but fluids to communicate the motion. They 

 are, therefore, composed of a tissue of network, or of solid fibres and 

 thin plates (or laminae,) which contain the fluids in their interstices. It is 

 among the fluid particles that the motion is most continuous and exten- 

 sive. Foreign substances penetrate into the innermost parts of the body, 

 and incorporate with it. They nourish the solids by interposing their 

 particles ; and, in detaching from the body its former parts, which have 

 now become superfluous, traverse the pores of the living frame, and 

 finally exhale under a liquid or gaseous form. During their course, the 

 foreign substances enter into the composition of the solid framework, 

 containing the fluids ; and, by contracting, communicate a part of their 

 motion to the liquid particles within them. 



This mutual action of solids and liquids — this transition of particles from 

 the one form to the other, presupposes a great chemical aflSnity in their 

 elementary constituents ; and we accordingly find, that the solid parts of or- 

 ganized bodies are composed chiefly of such elements as are capable of being 

 readily converted into liquids or gases. The solids would also require to 

 be endowed with considerable powers of bending and expanding, in order to 

 facilitate the mutual action and reaction between the solids and the fluids ; 

 and hence, this is found to be a very general characteristic of the solid parts 

 of organized bodies. This structure, common to all living bodies — this po- 

 rous or spongy texture, whose fibres or laminse, ever varying in flexibility, 

 intercept liquids, ever varying in quantity — consitutes what has been termed 

 organization; and, from the definition we have already given of the term 

 life, it necessarily follows that none but organized bodies are capable of 

 enjoying life. Thus we see, that organization results from a great number 

 of arrangements, all of which are essential conditions of life; and hence 

 it follows, that if living bodies be endowed with the power of altering even 

 one of these conditions, to such an extent as to obstruct or arrest any of 

 the partial movements, composing the general action, they must possess 

 within themselves the seeds of their own destruction. 



Every organized body, besides the ordinary properties of its texture, 

 possesses a form peculiar to its species ; and this applies, not merely to its 

 external arrangement in general, but even to the details of its internaf 

 structure. From this form is derived the particular direction of each 

 of its partial movements ; upon it depends the degree of intricacy in the 

 general motion; and, in fact, it is this which constitutes the body a 

 species, and makes it what it is. 



Life is always attended by organization, just as the motion of a clock 

 ever accompanies the clock itself; and this is true, whether we use tlie 

 terms in a general signification, or in their application to eacli par- 

 ticular being. Wc never find life, except in beings completely organized 

 and formed to enjoy it; and natural philosophers have never yet dis- 

 covered matter, either in the act of organizing itself, or of being orga- 

 nized, by any external cause whatever. The elements forming, in succes- 

 sion, part of the body, and the particles attracted into its substance, are 

 acted upon by life, in direct opposition to the ordinary chemical afiinitie?. 

 It is impossible, therefore, to ascribe to the chemical affinities those pheno- 

 mena, which are the result of the vital principle ; and there are no other 

 powers, except those of life, capable of re-uniting particles formerly se- 

 parated. 



The birth of organized beings is, therefore, the greatest mystery of 

 organic arrangements, and indeed of all nature. We see organized bodies 

 develop themselves, but they never form themselves; on the contrary, in 

 all those cases where we have been able to trace them to their source, 

 thej' are found to derive their origin from a being of similar form, but 

 previously developed; that is, from a. parent. The offspring is termed a 

 germ, as long as it participates in the life of its parent, and before it has 

 an independent existence of its own. In various species differences are 

 found to exist in the place where the germ is attached to its parent; and 

 also, in the occasional cause which detaches it, and gives it a separate ex- 

 istence; but, it is a rule which holds universally, without one single ex- 

 ception, that the progeny must have originally formed part of a being like 

 itself T'lfi separation of the germ is termed generation. 



Many ancient, and some more recent philosophers, believed that certain organized 

 beings could be produced without parents; and this opinion, though now completely 

 exploded among the learned by the most convincing experiments, still maintains its 

 ground with the ignorant. It originated, as most errors do, from hasty and inaccu- 

 rate observation. Virgil gravely attempts, in a very elegant passage of the Georgies, to 



Explain 

 The great discovery of the Arcadian swain ; 

 How art creates, and can at will restore 

 Swarms from the slaughter 'd bull's corrupted gore. 



And Kircher, who lived in the seventeenth century, gives a recipe to make snakes ; 

 which, however, he does not appear to have tried. 



In Scotland, the country people still believe that the hair-worm ( Gordhis aqKaiicus, 

 Linn.') can be formed artificially by placing a horse's hair in water; and this unfounded 

 opinion is, we understand, generally diffused throughout the kingdom. 



The mites in cheese, the blight on plants, and the maggots in meat, seem at first 

 sight to favour the belief in spontaneous generation; but in all these cases the 

 insects have been demonstrated to proceed fi*om eggs, deposited instinctively by the 

 parent, upon a substance capable of affording nutriment to her young. The popu- 

 lar mistakes on this subject are generally, however, concerning the lower tribes of ani- 

 m.Tls. But the ancients taught that even man could be produced without a parent. 

 The newly-formed earth was supposed to have been originally covered with a green 

 dawn, like that on young birds ; and, soon afterwards, men, like mushrooms, rose from 

 the ground. Lucretius (A. C. 60) relates, that even in his time, when the earth was 

 supposed to be too old for generation, '* many animals were concreted out of mud by 

 showers and sunshine." 



