s of animal matter which has been called
electropositive, it may be supposed that some electrical function is
exercised by oxygen in the blood; but this is a mere hypothesis. An
attempt has been made founded on experiments on the decomposition of
bodies by electricity to explain secretion by weak electrical powers, and
to suppose the glands electrical organs, and even to imagine the action
of the nerves dependent upon electricity; these, like all other notions
of the same kind, appear to me very little refined. If electrical
effects be the exhibition of certain powers belonging to matter, which is
a fair supposition, then no change can take place without their being
more or less concerned; but to imagine the presence of electricity to
solve phenomena the cause of which is unknown is merely to substitute one
undefined word for another. In some animals electrical organs are found,
but then they furnish the artillery of the animal and means of seizing
its prey and of its defence. And speculations of this kind must be
ranked with those belonging to some of the more superficial followers of
the Newtonian philosophy, who explained the properties of animated nature
by mechanical powers, and muscular action by the expansion and
contraction of elastic bladders; man, in this state of vague
philosophical inquiry, was supposed a species of hydraulic machine. And
when the pneumatic chemistry was invented, organic structures were soon
imagined to be laboratories in which combinations and decompositions
produced all the effects of living actions; then muscular contractions
were supposed to depend upon explosions like those of the detonating
compounds, and the formation of blood from chyle was considered as a pure
chemical solution. And, now that the progress of science has opened new
and extraordinary views in electricity, these views are not unnaturally
applied by speculative reasoners to solve some of the mysterious and
recondite phenomena of organised beings. But the analogy is too remote
and incorrect; the sources of life cannot be grasped by such machinery;
to look for them in the powers of electro-chemistry is seeking the living
among the dead: that which touches will not be felt, that which sees will
not be visible, that which commands sensations will not be their subject.

_Phil_.--I conclude, from what you last said, that though you are
inclined to believe that some unknown subtle matter is added to the
organised system