32 
of each of the others, toward the making one compound 
atom. 
Now since the same elements are found, forming constituent 
parts both of that which has, and that which has not life, why 
should their combinations so greatly differ ? why should one 
remain dead matter, and the other assume the almost infinite 
varieties of living forms ? I do not see how we can account 
for this, by any elemental action, inter se. The activity which 
produced the material universe, could only, by the exercise of 
the same means, continue to produce the material. The 
material, therefore, can but throw off varieties of the material 
— can but effect architectural changes. There must, conse- 
quently, be some power at work, independent of, and beyond, 
the inorganic components. Dr. Beale calls this the vital 
power ; and uses some very strong arguments in favour of its 
distinctive operation. I believe it is vital power, which, as 
well as the common inorganic forces, sprang from the same 
agent — a Power above both. 
But why should not the means which established the inor- 
ganic have suddenly changed on the completion of that work, 
and endowed it with the property of producing life ? This 
would be the employment of other means ; — that is to say, it 
would be changing what was already made. Nature affords 
no warrant for assuming change of any kind. The external 
world of to-day is the external world of the past. The form 
alone changes ; the substance is unchanged. May it not, then, 
have been endowed, from the first, with fife-creating power ? 
Here we come back to the arguments of the inferior producing 
the superior — which, in the whole range of nature, I appre- 
hend is unknown. 
It would seem, therefore, that fife itself was the cause of 
the great difference between the elemental combinations of 
the two creations — organic and inorganic : and though we are 
acquainted with the constituents of both, and their combina- 
tions, we cannot introduce fife into the inorganic, nor can we 
extract fife from it. 
Cuvier says, “ Life, exercising upon the elements which at 
every instant form part of the living body, and upon those 
which it attracts to it, an action contrary to that which would 
be produced without it, by the usual chemical affinities, it is 
inconsistent to suppose it can, itself, be produced by these 
affinities,” — an old argument, and none the worse for 
keeping. 
The unceasing chemical changes of the body are unmistak- 
ably subsequent to the introduction of vitality into structure- 
less matter ; aud dependent upon it. Life is, — and the hour 
