the character of the soul, and endow it with volition and consciousness. But we cannot will the circulation of the blood, nor are we conscious of the secretion of bile! Internal consciousness only appertains to our psychical nature-to our materiality no such attribute belongs.

The latter of this objection no Vitalist can answer; the former part of it has been met with the fact that, as glands differ equally in their structure and function, the mechanism of each may be considered to modify its product. In the first place, this is to admit that matter has as much influence over its presiding agent, as the presiding agent has over matter; which is just robbing this separate principle of the power for whose service it was called into imaginary existence; and secondly, it may be inquired-" if the difference in the glandular structure and action is capable of giving rise to so great a variety in the products, with the co-operation of this one vital principle, how can it be proved that this difference in the glandular structure and action may not be capable of giving rise to that result by itself, and without the aid of any such adjunct at all ?”—(Pritchard.)

VIII.

It is further to be objected to the doctrine of a separate vital principle, that, as its advocates call it into requisition to explain the phenomena of healthy function, it certainly cannot be made available to the elucidation of disordered function. If it admit of such an application, then, it must either be conceded that this individual entity is itself diseased, and if so, we may reasonably ask the Vitalists to account for it; or it must be acknowledged that a deterioration of matter, which they pro

nounce inert per se, has been the cause of the derangement of its only source of activity. To say thus much, would be to promulgate deliberate nonsense.

We are justified in believing that morbid action is always associated with more or less structural lesion. Generally, the alteration of tissue is cognizable to our ordinary senses, and with the assistance of the microscope its obscurest evidence rarely escapes us. To diseased structure, then, do we refer the disordered function which accompanies it, just (as we shall hereafter endeavour to shew) in the manner that we refer to the integrity of parts, the healthy properties which they manifest. Indeed, the abnormal functions of the body are such that, if we admit a separate principle of health, we must necessarily acknowledge a separate principle of disease. The action which at one time generates sound tissue, at another time, by its excess simply, generates morbid tissue ; as when redundant nutrition produces organic hypertrophy, and extraneous growths. Here is a cause of health plainly becoming a source of disease. If this cause be a vital principle, a conserratriz, wherefore is it that this principle destroys the uses of the 'parts it is acknowledged to be only concerned in defending?

Again, excessive nutrition instead of morbidly increasing the proper organism, will often beget an independent one, endow it with separate vitality, and with the power of propagating itself. This is instanced in the formation of the Acephalocyst, or Hydatid, a parasite common to man, and to several of the lower animals. It so closely resembles the cysts formed by irregular nutrition, that its free existence was long a matter of doubt. It is impassive under every form of stimulus ; it has no contractile power except what results from elasticity; and, to all appearance, neither feels, nor moves, nor exhibits any of the phenomena of organic life. Its power of reproduction, however, by the formation of buds or

gemmæ between its layers, ranks it in the scale of independent beings. According to the species, the young hydatids are thrown off either externally or internally.

Under other circumstances, depraved nutrition will generate a structure possessing little appearance or property in common with the contiguous tissue, but having a function peculiar to itself, and an inherent capability of propagation. Such happens in the formation of Cancer. Most of these growths consist of cells or vesicles, whose walls, when disunited, exhibit nuclei as their contents. Each cell possesses a separate individuality, feeds upon the surrounding organism, and multiplies itself by the developement of new cells interiorly. These cells differ from the normal ones in the fact that, whilst the latter undergo certain changes which deprive them of the power of reproduction, the cancerous ones, in their successive increase, scarcely depart from the original type.

IX.

ANOTHER objection to the theory of the Vitalists is that, if correct in its explanation of the phenomena of life and health, it leaves us quite at a loss to understand the phenomena of disease and death. The latter we are accustomed to regard as dependent upon certain organic changes resulting from the altered arrangements and dispositions of matter, for which we believe the common tendencies and affinities of material particles, under peculiar circumstances, to account sufficiently. But if the matter which composes our organism be entirely governed by a presiding agent, be subject to its exclusive authority and influence, and this agent be itself immaterial,

intangible, and therefore by any natural body invulnerable, there should be no such thing as corporeal decay, as slow poisoning, as wasting from starvation, or as accidental death, apart from external violence! If a vital principle, immortal, (as we believe the soul to be) have the exclusive government of the body, with a conservative and reparative power and tendency, death ought never to occur except on the complete disintegration of the material fabric, by chemical or mechanical force. Organs indeed should never tire-intense thought should produce no headache, and protracted watchfulness, or excessive glare, no amaurosis. Lucretius wisely says

Dicere porro oculos nullam rem cernere posse,
Sed per eos animum ut foribus spectare reclusis,
Difficile est, contra quom sensus ducat eorum;
Sensus enim trahit, atque acies detrudit ad ipsas:
Fulgida præsertim quom cernere sæpe nequimus,
Lumina luminibus quia nobis præpediuntur;

Quod foribus non fit: neque enim, qua cernimus ipsei,
Ostia subscipiunt ullum reclusa laborem.

DE RER. NAT. III. 360.

To deem the eyes, then, of themselves survey
Nought in existence, while th' interior mind
Looks at all nature through them as alone
Through loop-holes, is to trifle-sight itself
The creed absurd opposing every hour.

For oft the eye-ball dares not meet the day,

The flood of light o'erpow'ring: but were eyes

The mind's mere loop-holes, toil were never theirs.

GOOD.

For the same reason, stimulants in moderation should occasion no excitement, neither in excess should they stu

pify. The contrary, with its cause, is elegantly expressed by Lucretius.

Denique, cor hominum quom vini vis penetravit
Acris, et in venas discessit diditus ardor;
Consequitur gravitas membrorum, præpediuntur
Crura vacillanti, tardescit lingua, madet mens,
Nant oculei; clamor, singultus, jurgia, gliscunt;
Et jam cætera de genere hoc, quæquomque sequuntur :
Quur ea sunt, nisi quod vehemens violentia viri
Conturbare animam consuevit corpore in ipso.

DE RER. NAT. III. 475.

Why, too, when once the pungent power of wine
Flies through the system, and the blood inflames,
Why torpid grows each organ? reels each limb ?
Faulters the tongue ? rebels the madd'ning mind ?
Why swim the eyes? and hiccough, noise, and strife,
And each consociate ill their force combine?
Why but that deep the frantic bowl disturbs
Ev'n in the body, the secluded life ?*—Good.

OF THE LAWS WHICH DETERMINE PHYSICAL AND VITAL PHENOMENA.

X.

OUR knowledge of the external world is derived, simply and entirely, from the impressions made upon our sensual organs

* I have taken the liberty, with what propriety critics must decide, of altering the translation of the word animam, in accordance with the signification which this feminine term possesses. (See page 9, note.) The passage conturbare animam, means, to disturb life, not, to disturb mind, as Dr. Good has rendered it.

E