4 
LIVING BEINGS— ORGANIZATION IN GENERAL. 
combinations of actions must be secured, before there can be sensation and motion, 
thought and happiness.” 
JMany attempts have been made to account for the vital principle, but hitherto all 
these have proved abortive. It is possible, that various functions of the aninial frame 
may hereafter be discovered to proceed from mechanical or from chemical laws; but, 
we believe, that the ultimate springs of the phenomena of life will ever remain con- 
cealed from human knowledge. 
In order to form a just idea of the essential conditions of life, we must 
first examine those beings, which are the most simple in the scale of crea- 
tion ; and we shall readily perceive that these vital conditions consist, in 
a power possessed by certain bodies, for a period of time only, of exist- 
ing in a determinate form; of continually drawing into their composition 
a part of the surrounding substances ; and of returning back, to the in- 
fluence of the general laws of matter, certain portions of their own mate- 
rials. 
These phenomena are exhibited by the conferva rivularis, a small bundle of green 
filaments, finer tban hair, found in rivulets and stagnant pools. Being without root or 
leaves, it is simply attached by a broad surface to the margin of the water. While 
life exists, it increases in size and weight, throws out filaments like branches, assimi- 
lates the particles of water, and of other inorganic substances around it, into vegetable 
matter, and lays them down in an oblong cellular form. In animals and plants, nutri- 
tion is the effect of an internal power ; their growth is a development from within. In 
minerals, on the contrary, growth goes on by the external deposition of successive 
strata or layers; whibt organized bodies, by means of their vital power, grow and in- 
crease by the assimilation of different substances. The stalactite., once supposed to 
be an exception, is now proved to be subject to the ordinary laws of inorganic mat- 
ter. 
Thus life may be compared to a whirlpool of variable rapidity and in- 
tricacy, drawing in particles of the same kind, and always in the same 
direction ; but where the same individual particles are alternately entering 
and departing. The form of living bodies seems, therefore, to be more 
essentially their own, than the matter of which they are composed. 
Tho matter forming the bones of animals has been ascertained to undergo a very 
considerable change in a few days; and from this fact the probability of a corres- 
ponding change in the other parts of the frame is inferred. The very singular rapi- 
dity with which this change is effected was accidentally discovered. Certain animals 
were fed with madder (rubia tinctoruni), a plant cultivated for its red dye; and in 
twenty-four hours all their hones were found to he deeply tinged with its colour. On 
continuing tho same food, the colour became very deep; but upon leaving it off, the 
colour was completely removed in a very few days. By alternately changing the 
food, the bones were found to he marked with concentric rings of the red dye, accord- 
ing to the number of times that the change was made. These phenomena, so far sur- 
passing any thing that cduld have been anticipated, are well calculated to convey an 
idea of the extraordinary rapidity with which the particles of the animal frame are 
removed, while the form remains without any apparent alteration. 
While this movement continues, the body wherein it takes place lives ; 
when it entirely ceases, the body dies. After death, the elements which 
compose the living frame, being surrendered to the influence of the ordinary 
chemical affinities, begin to separate ; and the dissolution of the once living 
body speedily follows. It was, therefore, by the vital movement, that dis- 
solution had been previously arrested, and that the elements of organized 
bodies were preserved in a state of temporary union. All bodies cease to 
live after a certain period of time, the duration of which is fixed for each 
species. Death appears to be a necessary effect of life; and the very 
exercise of the vital power gradually alters the structure of the body, so 
as to render its longer existence impossible. The frame undergoes a re- 
gular and continual change, as long as life remains. Its bulk first increases 
in certain proportions, and to certain limits, fixed for each species, and for 
the several organs of each individual; and then, in tho course of time, 
many of its parts become more dense or solid. This last change api)ears 
to be the immediate cause of natural death. 
If different living bodies be examined with attention, we shall find 
tliein to be composed of an organic structure, which is obviously essential 
to such a whirlpool, as that to which we have already compared the 
vital action. There must not only he solid particles to maintain the 
forms of their bodies, but fluids to communicate the motion. They 
are, therefore, composed of a tissue of network, or of solid fibres and 
thin plates (or laminse,) which contain the fluids in their interstices. It is 
among the fluid particles that the motion i.s most continuous and exten- 
sive. Foreign substances penetrate into the innermost parts of the body, 
and incorporate with it. They nourish the solids by interposing their 
particles ; and, in detacliing from the body its former parts, which have 
now become superfluous, traverse the pores of the living frame, and 
finally exhale under a liquid or gaseous form. During their course, the 
foreign substance,s enter into the composition of the solid framework, 
containing the fluids ; and, by contracting, communicate a part of their 
motion to the liquid particles within them. 
This mutual action of solids and liquids — this transition of particles from 
the one form to the other, presupposes a great chemical affinity in their 
elementary constituents ; and we accordingly find, that the solid parts of or- 
ganized bodies are composed chiefly of such elements as are capable of being 
readily converted into liquids or gases. The solids would also require to 
be endowed with considerable powers of bending and expanding, in order to 
facilitate the mutual action and reaction between the solids and the fluids ; 
and hence, this is found to be a very general characteristic of the solid parts 
of organized bodies. Tliis structure, common to all living bodies — this po- 
rous or spongy texture, whose fibres or laminm, ever varying in flexibility, 
intercept liquids, ever varying in quantity — consitutes what has been termed 
organization; and, from the definition we have already given of the term 
life, it necessarily follows that none but organized bodies are capable of 
enjojnng life. Thus we see, that organization results from a great number 
of arrangements, all of which are essential conditions of life; and hence 
it follows, that if living bodies he endowed with the power of altering even 
one of these conditions, to such an extent as to obstruct or arrest any of 
the partial movements, composing the general action, they must possess 
within themselves the seeds of their own destruction. 
Every organized body, besides the ordinary properties of its texture, 
possesses a form peculiar to its species ; and this applies, not merely to its 
external arrangement in general, but even to the details of its internal 
structure. From this form is derived the particular direction of each 
of its pai'tial movements; upon it depends the degree of intricacy in the 
general motion; and, in fact, it is this which constitutes the body a 
species, and makes it what it is. 
Life is always attended by organization, just as the motion of a clock 
ever accompanies the clock itself ; and this is true, whether we use the 
terms in a general signification, or in their application to each par- 
ticular being. We never find life, except in beings completely organized 
and formed to enjoy it; and natural philosophers have never yet dis- 
covered matter, either in the act of organizing itself, or of being orga- 
nized, by any external cause whatever. The alements forming, in succes- 
sion, part of the body, and the particles attracted into its substance, are 
acted upon by life, in direct oiiposition to the ordinary chemical affinities. 
It is impossible, therefore, to ascribe to the clieraical affinities tliose plieno- 
mena, wiiich are the result of tlie vital principle ; and there are no other 
powers, except those of life, capable of re-uniting particles formerly se- 
parated. 
Tile birth of organized beings is, therefore, the greatest mystery of 
organic arrangements, and indeed of all nature. We see organized bodies 
develop themselves, but they never jfbm themselves; on the contrary, in 
all those cases where we have been able to trace them to their source, 
they are found to derive their origin from a being of similar form, but 
previously developed; that is, from a parent. The offspring is termed a 
germ, as long as it participates in tlie life of its parent, and before it has 
an independent existence of its own. In various species differences arc 
found to exist in the place where the germ is attached to its parent ; and 
also, in the occasional cause which detaches it, and gives it a separate ex- 
istence; but, it is a rule which holds universally, without one single ex- 
ception, 'that the progeny must have originally formed part of a being like 
itself. The separation of the germ is termed generation. 
Many ancient, and some more recent philosophers, believed that certain organized 
beings could be produced without parents ; and this opinion, though now completely 
e.xploded among the learned by the most convincing experiments, still maintains its 
ground with the ignorant. It originated, as most errors do, from hasty and inaccu- 
rate observation. Virgil gravely attempts, in a very elegant passage of the Georgies, t“ 
Explain 
The great discovery of the Arcadian swain ; 
How art creates, and can at will restore 
Swarms from tlie slaughter'd bull’s corrupted gore. 
And Kircher, who lived in the seventeenth century, gives a recipe to make snakes, 
which, however, ho doe.s not appear to have tried. 
In Scotland, the country people still believe that the hair-worm ( Gordius aquaticus, 
Linn.) can bo formed artificially by placing a horse's hair in water; and this unfounded 
opinion is, wo understand, generally diffused throughout the kingdom. 
The mites in cheese, the blight on plants, and the maggots in meat, seem at 
sight to favour the belief in spontaneous generation; but in all these cases the 
insects have been demonstrated to proceed from eggs, deposited instinctively by the 
parent, upon a substance capable of affording nutriment to her young. Tho popw 
lar mistakes on this subject are generally, however, concerning the lower tribes of ani' 
mals. But the ancients taught that even man could be produced without a parent- 
The newly-formed earth wa.s supposed to have been originally covered with a green 
down, like that on young birds ; and, soon afterwards, men, like mushrooms, rose front 
the ground. Lucretius (A. C. 60) relates, that even in his time, when the eartii t'SS 
supposed to be too old for generation, “ many animals were concreted out of mud by 
showers and sunshine.” 
