AND THE LIVING PRINCIPLE. 



263 



sed his opinion as to the principle which assi- 

 milates the food, and repairs the waste in the ani- 

 mal frame* That the phenomena of digestion 

 and assimilation are wonderful; that they exhi- 

 bit evidence of the operation of mind possessing 

 infinite power, can scarcely escape the perception of 

 the most stupid insensibility ; though the reason 

 why they are so arranged, and not otherwise, must 

 be referred to the pleasure of Him who made them 

 so. It must also be at once conceded, that the 

 changes which take place in the living body, re- 

 quire, in order to account for them, something more 

 than the mere existence of chemical affinities. But 

 it is another, and a very different question, Whe- 

 ther that Being who has confessedly formed matter, 

 has introduced a thinking principle into the animal 

 frame, with the charge of superintending the che- 

 mical changes to which its different parts are conti- 

 nually subjected? That the living principle is not 

 the soul, seems decisively proved by the fact, that 

 vegetables, which (except with poets) have no souls, 

 have unquestionably the living principle ; the pro- 

 cess of digestion going on in the laboratories of the 

 leaves. The whole difficulty seems to arise from 

 the ascription of a discriminating power to that 

 arrangement by which the food is assimilated, and 

 the breaches and injuries of the frame counteracted 

 and repaired. But there seems to be no necessity 



* Thomson's Chemistry, 5th edit. vol. iv. p. 6SS, ei seq* 



