of action; it does not increase our insight into the other phenomena; it
presents to us no _inclusive_ form, out of which the other forms may be
developed, and finally, its defect as a definition may be detected by
generalizing it into a higher formula, as a power which, during its
continuance, resists or subordinates heterogeneous and adverse powers. Now
this holds equally true of chemical relatively to the mechanical powers;
and really affirms no more of Life than may be equally affirmed of every
form of being, namely, that it tends to preserve itself, and resists, to a
certain extent, whatever is incompatible with the laws that constitute its
particular state for the time being. For it is not true only of the great
divisions or classes into which we have found it expedient to distinguish,
while we generalize, the powers acting in nature, as into intellectual,
vital, chemical, mechanical; but it holds equally true of the degrees, or
species of each of these genera relatively to each other: as in the
decomposition of the alkalies by heat, or the galvanic spark. Like the
combining power of Life, the copula here resists for awhile the attempts
to dissolve it, and then yields, to reappear in new phenomena.

It is a wonderful property of the human mind, that when once a momentum
has been given to it in a fresh direction, it pursues the new path with
obstinate perseverance, in all conceivable bearings, to its utmost
extremes. And by the startling consequences which arise out of these
extremes, it is first awakened to its error, and either recalled to some
former track, or receives some fresh impulse, which it follows with the
same eagerness, and admits to the same monopoly. Thus in the 13th century
the first science which roused the intellects of men from the torpor of
barbarism, was, as in all countries ever has been, and ever must be the
case, the science of _Metaphysics_ and _Ontology_. We first seek what can
be found at home, and what wonder if truths, that appeared to reveal the
secret depths of our own souls, should take possession of the whole mind,
and all truths appear trivial which could not either be evolved out of
similar principles, by the same process, or at least brought under the
same forms of thought, by perceived or imagined analogies? And so it was.
For more than a century men continued to invoke the oracle of their own
spirits, not only concerning its own forms and modes of being, but
likewise concerning