6 



THE ANIMAL AS A MACHINE. 



exhibit the play of definitely directed energy tending 

 to effect a perfectly well defined, though remote, re- 

 sult. Their effects are the accidental and the inci- 

 dental, so far as the more wonderful and most intricate 

 of the operations of nature are concerned. 



(2) The vital forces, on the other hand, effect opera- 

 tions which human power can only touch to impede or 

 to destroy. They have for their mission the creation of 

 strangely complicated and curiously organized struc- 

 tures, in which are stored certain definite amounts of 

 energy, and which are given a power of acquiring and 

 of applying extraneous energy, in probably also defi- 

 nite amount, to the accomplishment of certain tasks. 

 Man may modify their operation and may produce 

 some change in the phenomena which they are ap- 

 pointed to bring about ; but it is only by deranging 

 their action. He can mar their work, but cannot di- 

 rectly aid them. That store of vital energy which was 

 created in the infinite past, and which is now passing 

 through one after another of the forms of Hfe, new and 

 old, which are constantly coming into the field of our 

 cognizance, and as constantly disappearing from view, 

 is continually developing organisms of every grade from 

 the simple life-seed, if such exist — from the basic pro- 

 toplasm — to the human ruler of them all. 



Of these two sets of forces, the one is blind and aim- 

 less, unintelligent as to the direction of its efforts, in- 

 different as to its results, and is governed by laws 

 which, under all known conditions, are as simple as 

 they are invariable. The other set appears to act at 

 all times upon a definite, far-reaching plan, and these 

 forces set themselves intelligently about the production 

 of the most elegant and intricate of designs, and the 



