PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE. 143 



livingness. If the protoplasmic parts of the body a lie 

 held living in virtue of their being used by something 

 that really lives, then so, though in a less degree, 

 must tools and machines. If, on the other hand, tools 

 and machines are held non-living inasmuch as they 

 only owe what little appearance of life they may 

 present when in actual use to something else that 

 lives, and have no life of their own — so, though in a 

 less degree, must the non-protoplasmic parts of the 

 body. Allow an overflowing aroma of life to vivify 

 the horny skin under the heel, and from this there 

 will be a Spilling which will vivify the boot in wear. 

 Deny an aroma of life to the boot in wear, and it 

 must ere long be denied to ninety-nine per cent, of the 

 body ; and if the body is not alive while it can walk 

 and talk, what in the name of all that is unreasonable 

 can be held to be so ? 



That the essential identity of bodily organs and 

 tools is no ingenious paradoxical way of putting things 

 is evident from the fact that we speak of bodily organs 

 at all. Organ means tool. There is nothing which 

 reveals our most genuine opinions to us so unerringly 

 as our habitual and unguarded expressions, and in the 

 case under consideration so completely do we instinc- 

 tively recognise the underlying identity of tools and 

 limbs, that scientific men use the word " organ " for 

 any part of the body that discharges a function, prac- 

 tically to the exclusion of any other term. Of course, 

 however, the above contention as to the essential 

 identity of tools and organs does not involve a denial 

 of their obvious superficial differences — differences so 



