§ 2. ORGANIC AND INORGANIC BODIES. 591 



But organic bodies have characters of a totally different 

 nature ; they possess definite forms and structures, which 

 are capable of resisting for a time the ordinary laws by 

 which the changes of inorganic matter are regulated, while 

 internally they are in constant mutation. From the first 

 moment of the existence of the plant or animal to its disso- 

 lution there is no repose; youth follows infancy, — maturity 

 precedes age ; it is thus with the moss and the oak, — the 

 monad and the elephant, — life and death are common to 

 them all. 



Animals and vegetables also require a supply of food and 

 air, and a suitable temperature, for the continuance of their 

 existence ; and they are nourished by fluids elaborated by 

 appropriate organs, and transmitted through suitable vessels. 

 In the germ of an animal or a vegetable, there is a vital 

 principle in action, by which are developed in succession 

 the ordained phenomena of its existence. By this power 

 the germ is able to attract towards it particles of inanimate 

 matter, and bestow on them an arrangement widely differ- 

 ent from that which the laws of chemistry or mechanics 

 could produce. The same power not only attracts these 



fluids to expect great changes in the relative positions of their mole- 

 cules, which must be in perpetual motion even in the stillest water or 

 calmest air; but we were not prepared to find motion to such an extent in 

 the interior of solids. "VVe knew that their particles were brought nearer 

 by cold or pressure, or removed farther from one another by heat ; but 

 it could not have been anticipated that their relative positions could 

 be so entirely changed as to alter their mode of aggregation. It 

 follows from the low temperature at which these changes are effected, 

 that there is probably no portion of inorganic matter that is not in a 

 state of relative motion. Prismatic crystals of sulphate of nickel ex- 

 posed to the summer heat, in a close vessel, had their internal structure 

 completely altered, so that when broken open they were composed 

 internally of octahedrons, with square bases. The original aggrega- 

 tion of the internal particles had been dissolved, and a disposition 

 given to arrange themselves in a crystalline form." — Mrs. Somerville, 

 On the Connexion of the Sciences, p. 171. 



