CUTICLE, NAILS, HAIR AND FEATHERS. 273 



the subject. It comprehends the whole range of 

 animal and vegetable life, exhibiting varieties com- 

 mensurate not only with the enumerated species of 

 plants and animals, but with the product of this 

 number multiplied by that of the organs, and the 

 sorts of texture which occur, together with those 

 casual deviations which arise from rarer combina- 

 tions of circumstances, and go under the name of 

 morbid or preternatural. 



The other aspect which the facts of assimila- 

 tion present consists in the recondite nature of 

 the process by which it is accomplished. The 

 change induced is chemical. Certain affinities are 

 brought into action, which nothing short of life 

 can develope. For this reason, we ascribe them 

 to a peculiar set of agents. But the effects are 

 more or less persistent after life is extinguished. 

 Though the changes do not continue, the altered 

 state remains, or is followed by changes of a nature 

 totally different from all that occurs in matter 

 which has never been subjected to the influence of 

 life. The properties thus developed belong to mat- 

 ter as such, but they are not capable of being eli- 

 cited by matter alone. Whatever opinions may be 

 held relative to the connection between a substance 

 and its properties, or between matter and the agen- 

 cies which are constantly found attached to it, and 

 which have sometimes occasioned perplexity to the 

 ambition of philosophic subtlety, a clear distinc- 

 vol. in. s 



