ELECTRICITY AND LIFE. 159 
ence of vital electricity is incontestable, though we do not 
yet precisely understand the conditions of this internal ex- 
citement, and know nothing of its true relations with the 
unity of physico-chemical operations in the living organism. 
The latter are, at all events, exceedingly complex. 
There is in us, and in every organized being, an infinite 
world of the most various actions going on. The forces 
penetrating us are as manifold as the materials we are 
moulded from. In every point of our bodies, and at every 
moment of our existence, all the energies of Nature meet 
and unite. Yet, such order rules in the course of these 
wonderful workings, that harmonious blended action, in- 
stead of bewildering confusion, characterizes beings en- 
dowed with life. Every thing in them commands and 
answers, with balance and counterpoise. Buffon long ago 
felt and expressed this. “The animal,” he said, “ com- 
bines all the forces of Nature: his individuality is a centre 
to which every thing is referred, a point reflecting the 
whole universe, a world in little.” A deep saying, coming 
from the great naturalist as the flash of an intuition of 
genius rather than the result of rigid investigation—words 
which the movement of science confirms with ever stronger 
proofs, while borrowing from them light for its path. 
Having determined that living bodies are in themselves 
sources of the electric fluid, we next inquire into the nature 
of the effects produced in the animal organism by electricity 
under different forms. The atmosphere contains a variable 
quantity of positive electricity ; the earth itself is always 
charged with negative electricity. It is not yet precisely 
known how this diffused and silent force originates. Phys- 
icists suppose that it proceeds from vegetation and the 
evaporation of water. Becquerel has quite lately set forth 
a number of reasons, more or less plausible, for the belief 
that tke chief part of atmospheric electricity is derived 
from the sun, and diffused by it into space together with 
