ON THE CAUSES OF ORGANIZATION. 541 



electric, magnetic, and galvanic fluids, with the 

 singular phenomena of their polarisations ; are 

 unable to explain how a plant or animal, that on- 

 ly furnish the materials of nourishment, can or- 

 ganize the systems of their offspring, or how, the 

 materials being the same, can, by their chemical 

 or mechanical properties, arrange themselves into 

 such a diversity of varied, intricate, but regularly 

 defined and specific structures, as are found in the 

 animal and vegetable kingdoms. Even these 

 Physiologists have been under the necessity of 

 calling in the aid, of what they denominate Vital 

 Laws, — laws that operate in conformity to the 

 plan on which the species of the plant or animal 

 is to be constructed, not according to the proper- 

 ties of the food and drink, or the air that is in- 

 spired by the individual. Unwilling, however, 

 to invoke here the assistance of Deity, or to ad- 

 mit the operations of a vital principle, they are 

 laws enacted by no Legislature, and enforced by 

 no agent that has yet been named ; but laws or 

 regulations that are self-created, and which, when 

 personified by the power of fancy, have, accord- 

 ing to the courtesy of French Physiology, the 

 powers and privileges of real substantial inde- 

 pendent beings. Now, these laws being as incon- 

 ceivable as those organs that construct themselves, 

 the celebrated Leibnitz, Bonnet, and Buffon, 

 not able to imagine how life could exist without 

 a regularly organized structure, or how such struc- 



