We also admit willingly that this theory holds good even in the domain of organized matter, and that, in the regular order of succession, it runs through all the kingdoms. We see nothing in this admission which contradicts directly our belief.
In fact, the system extends even to the order of living nature, and there it points out two things.
On the one hand, it indicates, as the basis and chief constituent of living beings, the very materials of the inorganic world, the solid bodies, liquids, gases, which we find in all organizations, and especially in the human organization, the most complex of all; for this organization comprises fourteen of those elements which we call simple bodies, because we have not been able as yet to reduce them.
On the other hand, in animated nature itself there takes place a series of motions which succeed each other according to a determined order, with an especial character, yet not opposed to the laws of molecular mechanism; so that in the human body in motion heat is transformed into work and work into heat, according to the ordinary relation of calorics, and the human mover gives in labor the same proportion of heat produced as the other movers.[201]
Does this mean, continues the author of the system, that we have in this process all the elements of life? What is the cause which forms the first cell, the basis of living bodies? What deduces from it the developments of being? What limits and regulates its evolution? "Here we must suspend our judgment, or admit a special cause, the principle of which is peculiar to vital phenomena."
This cause, although its nature is unknown and undetermined, is manifested by movements, and may take, according to the same order of ideas, the rôle and name of vital force. This force is endowed with a peculiar activity, which transforms without creating, just as motion only transforms in virtue of anterior movements.
This doctrine, pushed to extremity, seems to infer that the phenomena of thought and volition are only pure movements, the result of physical or vital actions. But is not the human soul, the animating principle, thereby put in danger?
The author thinks not. "In the midst of material transformations," says he, "causes active by nature may intervene, and we have instanced some of them, in marking the nature and limits of such intervention. This is sufficient to leave the ground free to all the solutions of metaphysics."
We are more affirmative and precise. These causes, from the starting-point of the atom and movement, necessarily exist and act. In fact, if the atom and movement are the universe, outside the universe there must be and there is something superior to the atom and to motion—that which has given them birth; for we cannot suppose that the atom exists by itself, nor that motion is produced by itself. All that we see and conceive about atom and motion only gives us phenomenal relations and contingent results. Beyond this is the absolute. The observations and relations which experience offers us may be fruitful enough to render an account of the facts, to extend and enlighten our knowledge, to establish laws and attest actions. But let us not grow tired in repeating that these actions are not produced alone, and that these laws suppose an ordainer.
Especially when we endeavor to understand the nature of life, atoms and movement may come again into play; but the cause increases and is detached from the functions of beings; and the superiority of the effects more imperiously establishes the necessity of an author.