"We perceive now that our original conception of life and the terms we use respecting it, in common parlance, are but ill-adapted to this subject when philosophically considered. We early associate life and motion so intimately that the one stands for the other. If we then investigate by anatomy, we find a curious and minute mechanism in operation, an engine and tubes for circulation, and, in short, an internal motion of every particle of the frame; and the anatomist is also led into the error of associating in his mind life with motion and organization. But when we consider the subject more closely, and divest ourselves of habits and prejudices associated with words, we perceive that, without making any vain and even dangerous attempt at definition, life is first to be contemplated as the peculiarity distinguishing one of two classes into which all matter must be arranged; the one class, which embraces all living matter, is subject to a controlling influence which resists the chemical agents, and produces a series of revolutions, in an order and at periods prescribed; the other, dead matter, is subject to lapse and change under chemical agency and the common laws of matter.

"Let us examine the body of a perfect or a complicated animal. We find each organ possessed of a different power. But there is as yet no conventional language adapted to our discourse on this subject, and that is the source of many mistakes; for when a man even like Mr. Hunter had his mind illuminated upon this science, how was he to frame his language, when every word that he used had already a meaning which had no reference to the discovery he had made—to the distinct qualities which he had ascertained to belong to the living parts?...

"The difference between dead and living matter will appear to be, that in the one instance the particles are permanently arranged and continue to exhibit their proper character, as we term it, until by ingenuity and practice some means are found to withdraw the arranging or uniting influence; and then the matter is chemically dissolved: resolves into its elements, and forms new combinations: whilst the life continues, not simply to arrange the particles, and to give them the order or organization of the animal body, but to whirl them in a series of revolutions, during all which the material is passive, the law being in the life. The order and succession of these changes and their duration do not result from the material of the frame, which is the same in all animals, but from that influence which we term life, and which is superadded to the material." (Ibid. 408.)

Writing on Function Mr. Herbert Spencer discusses the following question. Its interest to our argument is unmistakable.

"Does Structure originate Function, or does Function originate Structure? is a question about which there has been disagreement. Using the word Function in its widest signification, as the totality of all vital actions, the question amounts to this—Does Life produce Organization, or does Organization produce Life?

"To answer this question is not easy, since we habitually find the two so associated that neither seems possible without the other; and they appear uniformly to increase and decrease together.... There is, however, one fact implying that Function must be regarded as taking precedence of Structure. Of the lowest Rhizopods, which present no distinctions of parts, and nevertheless feed and grow and move about, Prof. Huxley has remarked that they exhibit Life without Organization....

"It may be argued that on the hypothesis of Evolution, Life necessarily comes before organization. On this hypothesis, organic matter in a state of homogeneous aggregation, must precede organic matter in a state of heterogeneous aggregation. But since the passing from a structureless state to a structured state, is itself a vital process, it follows that vital activity must have existed while there was yet no structure: structure could not else arise. That function takes precedence of structure, seems also implied in the definition of Life. If Life consists of inner actions so adjusted as to balance outer actions—if the actions are the substance of Life, while the adjustment of them constitutes its form; then, may we not say that the actions to be formed must come before that which forms them—that the continuous change which is the basis of function, must come before the structure which brings function into shape? Or again, since throughout all phases of Life up to the highest, every advance is the effecting of some better adjustment of inner to outer actions; and since the accompanying new complexity of structure is simply a means of making possible this better adjustment; it follows that function is from beginning to end the determining cause of structure."—Principles of Biology, by Mr. Herbert Spencer, p. 153, seq.

We now return to Kant, from whom Dr. Whewell quoted the sentence—"An organized product of nature is that in which all the parts are mutually ends and means." Passing by a metaphysical paragraph expressed in a manner too technical for the general reader, Kant's practical comment on this sentence runs as follows:—

"Dass die Zergliederer der Gewächse und Thiere, um ihre Structur zu erforschen und die Gründe einsehen zu können, warum und zu welchem Ende solche Theile, warum eine solche Lage und Verbindung der Theile und gerade diese innere Form ihnen gegeben worden, jene Maxime: dass nichts in einem solchen Geschöpf UMSONST sey, als unumgänglich nothwendig annehmen und sie eben so, als den Grundsatz der allgemeinen Naturlehre: dass Nichts von ungefähr geschehe, geltend machen, ist bekannt. In der That können sie sich auch von diesem teleologischen Grundsatze eben so wenig lossagen, als dem allgemeinen physischen, weil, so wie bei Veranlassung des letzteren gar keine Erfahrung überhaupt, so bei der des ersteren Grundsatzes kein Leitfaden für die Beobachtung einer Art von Naturdinge, die wir einmal teleologisch unter dem Begriffe der Naturzwecke gedacht haben, übrig bleiben würde.

"Denn dieser Begriff führt die Vernunft in eine ganz andere Ordnung der Dinge, als die eines blossen Mechanism der Natur, der uns hier nicht mehr genug thun will. Eine Idee soll der Möglichkeit des Naturproducts zum Grunde liegen. Weil diese aber ein absolute Einheit der Vorstellung ist, statt dessen die Materie eine Vielheit der Dinge ist, die für sich keine bestimmte Einheit der Zusammensetzung an die Hand geben kann, so muss, wenn jene Einheit der Idee, sogar als Bestimmungsgrund a priori eines Naturgesetzes der Causalität einer solchen Form des Zusammengesetzten dienen soll, der Zweck der Natur auf ALLES, was in ihrem Producte liegt, erstreckt werden; weil, wenn wir einmal dergleichen Wirkung im Ganzen auf einen übersinnlichen Bestimmungsgrund über den blinden Mechanism der Natur hinaus beziehen, wir sie auch ganz nach diesem Princip beurtheilen müssen und kein Grund da ist, die Form eines solchen Dinges noch zum Theil vom letzteren als abhängig anzunehmen, da alsdann bei der Vermischung ungleichartiger Principien, gar keine sichere Regel der Beurtheilung übrig bleiben würde." Kritik der Urtheilskraft, Section 65.