AND THE LIVING PRINCIPLE* 



271 



produces the organized foetus or seed. It may be, 

 that some of the organs are perceptibly developed 

 sooner than others. It is natural to suppose, that 

 those immediately employed in secreting the nou- 

 rishment, should be first displayed, especially in those 

 animals which are hatched without deriving subsis- 

 tence from the mother. But in all cases, the direct 

 conclusion from analogy is, that the parent prepares 

 the organized rudiment of its offspring, which re- 

 quires only the common operation of its organs to 

 complete the animal. 



From organization, then, which is a lower point 

 in the scale, we ascend to the Living Principle or 

 vis vitce ; — terms which may be safely adopted, pro- 

 vided we keep in view, that it is not by this princi- 

 ple the soul lives ; and that when our bodies shall 

 be mouldering in the dust, and our souls existing 

 in a disembodied state, this living principle shall 

 have ceased to live. A concomitant only on animal 

 and vegetable life, it must vanish with it, like the 

 corresponding portion of gravity, which would cease 

 to exist on the annihilation of the particles of mat- 

 ter on which it was impressed. 



