98 NATURE AND LIFE. 
ner, and by what mode of comparison with known things, 
could we represent the influence of such ideas upon organic 
materials? The intrinsic, sufficient, and determining cause 
of vital phenomena, we are forced to confess, after the dem- 
onstration Robin gives of them, lies in the properties 
themselves of organized substance. These phenomena are 
equations of a very high order, infinitely complicated for- 
mulas, of which these properties are the first factors, which 
we cannot reduce. In a word, anatomical elements have in 
themselves their principles of action and direction, exactly 
as the mineral molecules which form crystals have in them- 
selves the principle of the harmony which they produce. 
The external form, that is to say, the contour, just as the 
internal form, that is, the organization, is the consequence 
of spontaneous principles of energy peculiar to the ultimate 
particles of life. As to the principle of these principles, 
their first cause, impenetrable darkness hides it from our 
sight. 
No doubt, when we cast the first glance on the totality 
of animated beings, it is with difficulty that we resist the 
thought that a breath as intelligent as mighty has com- 
municated itself to them, impregnates, vivifies, and urges 
them in a course of which it knows the end (mens agitat 
molem). Seeing the most perfect and delicate organs grow 
out of a coarse and shapeless-looking pulp, we are almost 
irresistibly driven to look on high for the workman of that 
amazing fabrication. Butif the mind be ever so little pene- 
trating, it must soon give up its first momentary illusion in 
presence of the testimony of facts. If it takes the trouble 
to go to the bottom of things, and to exhaust their details; 
if it chooses to follow step by step the development of life 
in the ovule and the embryo, to study the functions of the 
system, in healthy animals and in diseased animals, it will 
recognize the spontaneity and the activity of the natural 
forces acting in themselves and by themselves in eternal 
