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Hylozoic Materialism. [June, 
constituent atoms will ever become part of a sentient 
organism. But no argument can be drawn from this truism, 
unless we assume that the most easily ascertainable proper- 
ties of any substance enable us to predict its behaviour 
under all possible conditions. If this were so, the laws of 
one science would afford the complete rationale of every 
other, and we might have discovered the ele(5tric telegraph 
by means of the Law of Gravitation, and the composition 
of water by the principles of Hydrostatics. But even di- 
rectly related phenomena flatly contradict such an assump- 
tion. The cause refuses to account for the effect, — the 
effeCt to reveal the cause. This truth cannot be more 
strikingly illustrated than by the modern science of Che- 
mistry. From the individual properties of any two elements 
we can neither infer a priori nor explain a posteriori the 
result of their union. In following the history of any che- 
mical compound, we meet with phenomena not less wondrous 
and inexplicable than those of Life and Consciousness. I 
seleCt a well-known example : — Nitrogen and carbon, two 
inodorous and innoxious elements, unite to generate cyano- 
gen, an extremely poisonous gas, emitting a peculiar and 
penetrating odour, and producing, in combination with 
oxygen, six isomeric compounds. One of them, cyanic acid, 
is a clear and strongly odorous liquid, which cauterises the 
skin like red-hot iron, but in a few hours spontaneously 
solidifies into cyamelide, an opaque white solid, inodorous, 
and without acid qualities. Here it is evident that the con- 
stituent atoms no more possess the qualities of the compound 
than the molecules of the brain are individually endowed 
with the powers of judgment and reflection. Yet we do not 
find it necessary to assume the addition of a poisonous and 
odorous immaterial principle to the compound cyanogen, 
nor the exit of such an entity from cyanic acid, when it is 
transformed into its isomer. 
The science of Chemistry may, indeed, fittingly illustrate 
that of Biology, for the vital aCt itself is a purely chemical 
process. The life of man is identical with the life of a 
flame, being maintained by the oxidation, or slow combus- 
tion \eremacausis), of organic tissue, at a temperature of 
g8° F. The oxygen, which but a moment before formed 
part of the apparently non-vital atmosphere, imparts vitality 
to the human frame, with which it is for a time incorporated. 
Being absorbed by the blood in its passage through the lungs, 
it is conveyed by heart and arteries to the network of infini- 
tesimal capillaries, and from these to every atom of the living 
body, where it at once integrates and disintegrates, constructs 
