This notion of a vortex[76] which is permanent while the matter which composes it constantly changes,—of peculiar forces which act in this vortex so long as it exists, and which give place to chemical forces when [208] the circulatory motion ceases,—appears to express some of the leading conditions of the assimilative power of living things in a simple and general manner, and thus tends to give distinctness to the notion of this vital function.
[76] The definition of life given by M. de Blainville appears to me not to differ essentially from that of Cuvier: ‘Un corps vivant est une sorte de foyer chimique où il-y-a à tous momens apport de nouvelles molecules et départ de molecules anciennes; où la composition n’est jamais fixe (si ce n’est d’un certain nombre de parties veritablement mortes ou en depôt), mais toujours pour ainsi dire in nisu, d’où mouvement plus ou moins lent et quelquefois chaleur.’—Principes d’Anat. 1822, t. i. p. 16.
6. But we may observe that this notion of a Vortex is still insufficient. Particles are not only taken into the system and circulated through it for a time, but, as we have seen, they are altered in character in a manner to us unintelligible, both at their first admission into the system and at every period of their progress through it. In the vortex each particle is constantly transformed while it whirls.
It may be said, perhaps, that this transformation of the kinds of matter may be conceived to be merely a new arrangement of their particles, and that thus all the changes which take place in the circulating substances are merely so many additional windings in the course of the whirling current. But to say this, is to take for granted the atomic hypothesis in its rudest form. What right have we to assume that blood and tears, bile and milk, consist of like particles of matter differently arranged? What can arrangement, a mere relation of space, do towards explaining such differences? Is not the insufficiency, the absurdity of such an assumption proved by the whole course of science? Are not even chemical changes, according to the best views hitherto obtained, something more than a mere new arrangement of particles? And are not vital as much beyond chemical, as chemical are beyond geometrical modifications? It is not enough, then, to conceive life as a vortex. The particles which are taken into the organic frame do more than circulate there. They are, at every point of their circulation, acted upon by laws of an unknown kind, changing the nature of the substance which they compose. Life is a vortex in which vital forces act at every point of the stream: it is not only a current of whirling matter, but a cycle of recurring powers.
7. Matter and Form.—This image of a vortex is closely connected with the representation of life offered [209] us by writers of a very different school. In Schelling’s Lectures on Academic Study, he takes a survey of the various branches of human knowledge, determining according to his own principles the shape which each science must necessarily assume. The peculiar character of organization, according to him[77], is that the matter is only an accident of the thing itself, and the organization consists in Form alone. But this Form, by its very opposition to Matter, ceases to be independent of it, and is only ideally separable. In organization, therefore, substance and accident, matter and form, are completely identical[78]. This notion, that in organization the Form is essential and the Matter accidental, or, in other words, that the Form is permanent and the Matter fluctuating and transitory, agrees, if taken in the grossest sense of matter and form, with Cuvier’s image of a Vortex. In a whirlpool, or in a waterfall, the form remains, the matter constantly passes away and is renewed. But we have already seen[79] that in metaphysical speculations in which matter and form are opposed, the word form is used in a far more extensive sense than that which denotes a relation of space. It may indeed designate any change which matter can undergo; and we may very allowably say that food and blood are the same matter under different forms. Hence if we assert that Life is a constant Form of a circulating Matter, we express Cuvier’s notion in a mode free from the false suggestion which ‘Vortex’ conveys.
[77] Lect. xiii. p. 288.
[78] I have not translated Schelling’s words, but given their import as far as I could.
8. We may, however, still add something to this account of life. The circulating parts of the system not only circulate, but they form the non-circulating parts. Or rather, there are no non-circulating parts: all portions of the frame circulate more or less rapidly. The food which we take circulates rapidly in the fluids, more slowly in the flesh, still more slowly in the bones; but in all these parts it is taken into the system, [210] retained there for some time, and finally replaced by other matter. But while it remains in the body, it exercises upon the other circulating parts the powers by which their motion is produced. Nutriment forms and supports the organs, and the organs carry fresh nutriment to its destination. The peculiar forces of the living body, and its peculiar structure, are thus connected in an indescribable manner. The forces produce the structure; the structure, again, is requisite for the exertion of the forces. The Idea of an Organic or Living Being includes this peculiar condition—that its construction and powers are such, that it constantly appropriates to itself new portions of substance which, so appropriated, become indistinguishable parts of the whole, and serve to carry on subsequently the same functions by which they were assimilated. And thus Organic Life is a constant Form of a circulating Matter, in which the Matter and the Form determine each other by peculiar laws (that is, by Vital Forces).