THE VITAL AND PHYSICAL FORCES. 
751 
and vital force are “ correlated,” — seems to be the expression of their mutual depend- 
ence, which is most in accordance with all our knowledge of the influence of heat 
upon organized beings ; whilst conversely (as will be shown hereafter) it accords 
with the fact of the restoration to the inorganic world — under some form or other — 
of all the force thus withdrawn from it. 
It may serve, however, to bring this idea into contrast with the notions usually 
entertained, and to illustrate its application more fully, if it be considered in its re- 
lation to the Development of any highly organized being from its primordial germ- 
cell. According to the doctrine current among some physiologists, the whole “ or- 
ganizing force,” “ nisus formativus,” or “ bildungstrieb,” which is to be exerted in 
the development of the complete structure, lies dormant hi this single cell, the germ 
(it has been affirmed) being potentially” the entire organism. And thus all the or- 
ganizing force required to build up an oak or a palm, an elephant or a whale, is 
concentrated in a minute particle only discernible by microscopic aid. 
As a refuge from this doctrine, which seems almost too absurd ever to have gained 
believers, other physiologists (among whom the author formerly ranked himself) 
have affirmed that vital force must exist in a dormant condition in all matter capable 
of becoming organized ; that the germ-cell, in drawing to itself organizable mate- 
rials, and in incorporating these into the living structure, does nothing else than 
evoke into activity their latent powers ; and thus that, with every act of growth and 
cell-multiplication, new vital force is called into operation, whereby the process is 
continually maintained. This proposition, it may be safely asserted, does not involve 
any manifest absurdity. It attributes to oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen, 
properties which they were not previously supposed to possess ; but no one could 
logically deny to these elements the possession of dormant vital powers, whilst they 
held that a dormant magnetic power might be attributed to iron. In the one case, 
as in the other (it may be affirmed), a certain combination of conditions is needed 
to call the property into exercise ; and the living cell, combining the elementary sub- 
stances into the pabulum of its growth, and then applying this to its own nutrition, 
calls their latent vital properties into activity, — ^just as (it has been argued) an electric 
current, made to circulate around a piece of iron, developes the latent magnetic force 
of that metal. 
The views of Prof. Grove, however, strike at the root of the notion of latent force 
of any description whatever ; all force once generated being, in his estimation, perpe- 
tually active under one form or other; and its supposed “latency” being a hypo- 
thetical condition, the idea of which is quite unnecessary when the force which has 
ceased to manifest itself is recognized under some other form. Thus, in his view, 
when iron is rendered magnetic by an electric current, the development of the mag- 
netic force is rather to be looked on as the result of the conversion of the electric, by 
the instrumentality of the iron, than as a case of the excitation of one force previously 
