ny
readers, prove unsatisfactory, unless they are prepared for it by an
introduction of a more popular character. This purpose, therefore, I shall
endeavour to accomplish; it being to be understood that I by no means make
myself responsible either for Mr. Coleridge's speculations, or for the
manner in which they are enunciated; and that, on the contrary, I shall
occasionally indicate views from which I dissent, and expressions which
perhaps the author himself, on revision, would have seen reason to
correct.

It is clear that Mr. Coleridge considers the unity of human nature to
result from two combined elements, Body and Soul; that he regards the
latter as the principle of Reason and of Conscience (both which he has
largely treated in his published works), and that the "Life," which he
here investigates, concerns, in relation to mankind, only the Body. He is
far, however, from confining the term "Life" to its action on the human
body; on the contrary, he disclaims the division of all that surrounds us
into things with life, and things without life; and contends, that the
term Life is no less applicable to the irreducible _bases_ of chemistry,
such as sodium, potassium, &c., or to the various forms of crystals, or
the geological strata which compose the crust of our globe, than it is to
the human body itself, the acme and perfection of animal organization. I
admit that there are certain great powers, such as magnetism, electricity,
and chemistry, whose action may be traced, even by the limited means which
science at present possesses, in admirable gradation, from purely
unorganized to the most highly organized matter: and, I think, that Mr.
Coleridge has done this with great ingenuity and striking effect; but what
I object to is, that he applies to the combined operation of these powers,
in all cases, the term _Life_. If we look back to the early history of
language, we shall probably find that this word, and its synonymes in
other tongues, were first employed to denote _human_ life, that is, the
duration of a human being's existence from birth to the grave. As this
existence was marked by actions, many of which were common to man with
other animals, those animals also were said to "live;" but the extension
of the notion of Life to the vegetable creation is comparatively a recent
usage,--and hitherto (in this country at least) no writer before Mr.
Coleridge, so far as I know, has maintained that rocks and mountains, nay,