Organization and Life. 185 



monstrated " to be " extra-organic," and he calls it ' e an inter- 

 mediary of the soul,"* whose mysterious union with the body- 

 represents the entire being. Plunging thus headlong into con- 

 jectural metaphysics, we are not surprised to be told that " life 

 creates in each species of creatures the special organs that are 

 to serve as the instruments of its activity. The functions create 

 the organs, and after that all goes on by the mediation of 

 physical laws." We hope this learned Professor does not 

 represent the condition of French intellect dwarfed by Napo- 

 leonic despotism; but we read with astonishment his argu- 

 ments to prove the strange theory we have announced : " All 

 vegetables and animals feel" so runs the book, and they do 

 this " with or without organs of sensibility ; they all breathe, 

 but with different organs of respiration, from the plants which 

 have no respiratory apparatus, and certain animals that breathe 

 through all their tissues, up to insects which respire through 

 tracheal tubes, fish that have gills, and birds and mammals 

 that possess lungs." " Here is a fact," exclaims our author, 

 " which proves against those who contend that the organ 

 creates the function ; and it is infinitely more true to say that 

 the function creates the organ." Whether the animal be a 

 symple polyp or a complicated man, the function is not per- 

 formed until there is an organ to perform it ; the difference is 

 that in the higher creature an immense advance has been made 

 in the adaptation of a special structure to a special use. 



Even apart from intellectual manifestations, it is clear that 

 living beings do things that are not done by inorganic matter ; 

 but we are not entitled to ascribe the whole assemblage of such 

 acts to a "vital force," or some entity totally distinct from 

 any physical force ; nor should we say that " when once life is 

 incarnated in matter, it produces effects which in their turn act 

 as causes," and so forth. We can trace the circumstances under 

 which an animal lives, but, apart from religious ideas, we have 

 not the faintest conception of why it lives, nor will physical 

 science help us in the research. In his great work on Logic, 

 John Stuart Mill remarks that although it would be an import- 

 ant addition to our knowledge, " if proved, that certain motions 

 in the particles of bodies are among the conditions of the pro- 

 duction of heat or light ; that certain assignable physical 

 modifications of the nerves may be the conditions not only of 

 our sensations and emotions, but even of our thoughts ; that 

 certain mechanical and chemical conditions may, in the order of 

 Nature, be sufficient to determine to action the physiological laws 

 of life ;" still, " it must not be supposed that by proving these 

 things, one step would be made towards a real explanation of 

 heat, light, or sensation." In the same spirit, Bacon warns us 



* Intermediaire de Vdme. 



