274 



ON THE NUTRITION Of 



tion presents itself between those properties which 

 matter always exhibits, and those which only ap- 

 pear on particular occasions, and which the mere 

 contact or influence of other matter is not ade- 

 quate to produce. 



In attending to the chemical phenomena of life, 

 and, we may add, all the other phenomena, more tri- 

 vial or more stupendous, which are conjoined with 

 life from its lowest to its highest forms, one fact 

 ought never to be lost sight of,— and the considera- 

 tion of it will never fail to insinuate a degree of 

 salutary influence into the views of the most rigid 

 and the most sceptical reasoners, — that the pro- 

 perties of life do not necessarily reside in any por- 

 tion of matter whatever. There are no elements 

 in a living body which we do not find in dead mat- 

 ter. The perpetuity of particular specimens of liv- 

 ing form and function depends on laws which are 

 not attached to matter, and which might cease to 

 operate though all the materials of the organs re- 

 mained. The extinction of a whole species is an event 

 which we easily conceive, as the effect of the cessa- 

 tion of coincidences which we may call fortuitous ; 

 and, on the occurrence of such an event, which even 

 human co-operation seems competent to accomplish, 

 none of the existing powers connected with all the 

 matter known to us, (even that which has been ani- 

 mated by the numerous individuals of the extin- 

 guished pattern), and no combination of these 



