26 
ON LIFE AND ORGANIZATION, 
stances in which they would certainly be destroyed, were they 
destitute of the powers of life. They remain buried many thou- 
sands of years deep in the bowels of the earth ; yet, when accident 
throws them on the surface, they immediately develope properties 
which had been latent for unknown ages. 
Seeds pass uninjured through the digestive organs of animals, 
exposed with impunity to the most powerful of all solvents of 
vegetable and animal matter, the gastric juice. Hence worms 
are capable of living in the stomachs of animals. 
The property of hybernation in animals is another curious 
phenomenon, exhibiting in a wonderful manner the preservative 
powers of life. In this state, the usual vital processes are either 
wholly suspended, or go on with an extraordinary degree of slow- 
ness. The fat dormouse, which in winter falls into a torpid state, 
illustrates what may be considered as the lowest degree of hyber- 
nation. When the cold weather sets in, these creatures roll them- 
selves into a ball, and in this state may be found in hollow trees, 
or clefts of rocks. They may be rolled about in this state without 
rousing them. Nothing, indeed, seems to awaken them from 
their lethargy but gradual heat: while sudden exposure to a fire 
causes death. 
Not less remarkably is the influence of the vital power exempli- 
fied in the protection it affords the body from disease. Against 
the influence of noxious agents the living body is endowed with 
a power of resistance which affords it complete security as long 
as the vital energies continue vigorous ; but when these decline, 
the very causes which before made no sensible impression upon it, 
now prove fatal. Hence, the weaker the body the more sus- 
ceptible is it to the influence of physical agents, and the less it is 
capable of resisting the effect of those that are noxious. 
The second property peculiar to life, is the power possessed by 
organized beings of assimilating foreign matter to their own sub- 
stance. The plant puts forth its root into the soil, and, abstracting 
the nutrient particles it finds, converts them into its own proper 
substance. The animal receives into the interior of its body the 
different substances from which it derives its nourishment, dis- 
solves them, decomposes them, recombines their elements in new 
proportions and in different modes, and thus forms all its tissues, 
and all the organs which anatomy displays, as comprising struc- 
ture. The succession of nature in the progress of the individual, 
enables us to draw a clear distinction between the organic and the 
inorganic. We know of no such operation as growth in inani- 
mate matter. It is true that diamonds appear to be formed in 
not a very great number of years in some soils; and we know that 
crystals exist in our own country, as they are abundantly met 
