VIEW OF NATURE. 
209 
operates in them we call the vital principle. This vital princi- 
ple eludes the researches of man ; all that we know of it is in its 
effects, enabling the organized body to resist putrefaction, and, 
to a certain degree, to maintain a temperature different from 
surrounding bodies. Deprived of this vital principle, both ani- 
mals and vegetables become subject to chemical decomposition ; 
their solid parts are dissolved, and they return to the earth from 
whence they were taken. 
If you dig up a stone, and remove it from one place to ano- 
ther, it will suffer no alteration ; if you dig a plant it will wither 
and die. If you break a mineral to pieces, eveiy fragment will 
be a perfect specimen of its kind, it will only be altered in shape 
and size ; but if you tear off a branch from a plant, or if a limb 
is taken from an animal, they will both immediately begin to de- 
cay ; the vital principle being extinguished, putrefaction and dis- 
solution follow. 
We should never have been able to predict, from the appear- 
ances of the stone, the plant, and animal, that they were thus 
differently constituted ; by observations we find, that the produc- 
tion and mode of growth, has been under different circumstances. 
We find that the stone has grown by a gradual accumulation of 
particles, independent of each other, and can only be destroy- 
ed by chemical or mechanical force ; the plant and animal, 
have on the contrary, grown by nourishment, been possessed of 
parts mutually dependent, and contributing to the existence of 
each other. 
So far, our observation teaches us the distinction between or- 
ganized and inorganized beings ; though it does not teach us in 
what this internal power or life consists. God permits us to know 
much, in order to lead us to industry in the attainment of knowl- 
edge ; but he places boundaries beyond which we may not pass, 
that we may be humble. 
Comparison or the organic and inorganic kingdoms. 
INORGANIC BODIES. ORGANIC BODIES. 
Structure. 
Their parts always analogous 
to, and not depending on each 
other ; thus a fragment ofstone, 
is as much a stone as the block 
or rock to which it belonged. 
Their parts are mutually de- 
pendent ; thus a stem , leaf, 
flower, &c, do not constitute a 
vegetable being, except as they 
are united ; it is the same with 
the different parts of an animal. 
Distinction between inorganized and organized substances — 
