MRS. B.
I have nothing to object to your definition; but you will allow me to observe, that you have only mentioned the effects which the unknown cause produces, without giving us any notion of the cause itself.
EMILY.
Yes, Caroline, you have told us what life does, but you have not told us what it is.
MRS. B.
We may study its operations, but we should puzzle ourselves to no purpose by attempting to form an idea of its real nature.
We shall begin with examining its effects in the vegetable world, which constitutes the simplest class of organised bodies; these we shall find distinguished from the mineral creation, not only by their more complicated nature, but by the power which they possess within themselves, of forming new chemical arrangements of their constituent parts, by means of appropriate organs. Thus, though all vegetables are ultimately composed of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, (with a few other occasional ingredients,) they separate and combine these principles by their various organs, in a thousand ways, and form, with them, different kinds of juices and solid parts, which exist ready made in vegetables, and may, therefore, be considered as their immediate materials.
These are:
Sap,
Mucilage,