62 Prof. Owen on Life and Species. 
magnetize the steel, and both cease to manifest their respective 
vital or magnetic phenomena. In that respect both are ‘de-_ 
funct.’ Only the steel resists much longer the surrounding — 
decomposing agencies. . 
man perceives a ripe fruit: if he can and will, he stretches — 
out his hand, plucks, brings to his mouth, masticates, swal- | 
lows, and digests it. | 
he question then arises whether the difference between-such 
series of actions in the man and the attractive and assimila- 
tive movements of the ameba, be less or greater, than the 
difference between these acts of the ameba and the attracting 
and retaining acts of the magnet. 
More may be said on both questions than I have here space 
ation. e 
Magnetic phenomena are sufficiently wonderful, exemplify- 7, 
ing, as they do, one of those subtle, interchangeable, may we — 
not say ‘immaterial,’ modes of force which endows the metal | 
with the power of attracting, selecting, and making to move, 8 | 
substance extraneous to itself. It is analogically conceivable | 
that the same Causs which has endowed His world with power | 
convertible into magnetic, electric, thermotic and other forms — 
or modes of force, has also added the conditions of conversiol — q 
into the vital mode. | 
erve-force we know to be convertible into electric energy, — 
and reciprocally : and from the electric force, so induced, mag- | 
netic and other modes have been derived (vol. i, p. 357). The | 
_ direction, then, in which may be anticipated the replies to the | 
ultimate question, will be toward an admission of the origina- 
ting and vitalizing of the primary jelly-speck or sarcode granule, a 
y the operat ion of a change of force forming part of the con- 7 
stitution of Kosmos ; not contrary to its ordained laws, in the | 
sense in which ‘miracle’ or the ‘interposition of special crea- | 
But from protozoa,® or protista, to plants and animals, the 
ation is closer than from magnetized iron to vitalized sal- 
code. From reflex acts of the neryous system, animals rise to 
sentient and volitional ones, 4 
being understood as ‘life’ gene 
d its manifestations into unal- — 
