lectual construction. An argument which, of
itself, is sufficient to prove the untenable nature of Materialism.

To explain a power, on the other hand, is (the power itself being assumed,
though not comprehended, _ut qui datur, non intelligitur_) to unfold or
spread it out: _ex implicito planum facere_. In the present instance, such
an explanation would consist in the reduction of the idea of Life to its
simplest and most comprehensive form or mode of action; that is, to some
characteristic _instinct_ or _tendency_, evident in all its
manifestations, and involved in the idea itself. This assumed as existing
in _kind_, it will be required to present an ascending series of
corresponding phenomena as involved _in_, proceeding _from_, and so far
therefore explained _by_, the supposition of its progressive intensity and
of the gradual enlargement of its sphere, the necessity of which again
must be contained in the idea of the tendency itself. In other words, the
tendency having been given in _kind_, it is required to render the
phenomena intelligible as its different degrees and modifications. Still
more perfect will the explanation be, should the necessity of this
progression and of these ascending gradations be contained in the assumed
idea of life, as thus defined by the general form and common purport of
all its various tendencies. This done, we have only to add the conditions
common to all its phenomena, and, those appropriate to each place and
rank, in the scale of ascent, and then proceed to determine the primary
and constitutive forms, _i.e._ the elementary powers in which this
tendency realizes itself under different degrees and conditions.(7)

What is Life? Were such a question proposed, we should be tempted to
answer, what is _not_ Life that really _is_? Our reason convinces us that
the quantities of things, taken abstractedly as quantity, exist only in
the relations they bear to the percipient; in plainer words, they exist
only in our minds, _ut quorum esse est percipi_. For if the definite
quantities have a ground, and therefore a reality, in the external world,
and independent of the mind that perceives them, this ground is _ipso
facto_ a quality; the very etymon of this world showing that a quality,
not taken in its own nature but in relation to another thing, is to be
defined _causa sufficiens, entia, de quibus loquimur; esse talia, qualia
sunt_. Either the quantities perceived exist only in the perception, or