they have likewise a real existence. In the former case, the quality (the
word is here used in an active sense) that determines them belongs to
Life, _per ipsam hypothesin_; and in the other case, since by the
agreement of all parties Life may exist in other forms than those of
consciousness, or even of sensibility, the _onus probandi_ falls on those
who assert of any quality that it is _not_ Life. For the analogy of all
that we know is clearly in favour of the contrary supposition, and if a
man would analyse the meaning of his own words, and carefully distinguish
his perceptions and sensations from the external cause exciting them, and
at the same time from the quantity or superficies under which that cause
is acting, he would instantly find himself, if we mistake not,
involuntarily identifying the ideas of Quality and Life. Life, it is
admitted on all hands, does not necessarily imply consciousness or
sensibility; and we, for our parts, cannot see that the irritability which
metals manifest to galvanism, can be more remote from that which may be
supposed to exist in the tribe of lichens, or in the helvellae, pezizee,
&c., than the latter is from the phenomena of excitability in the human
body, whatever name it may be called by, or in whatever way it may modify
itself.(8) That the mere act of growth does not constitute the idea of
Life, or the absence of that act exclude it, we have a proof in every egg
before it is placed under the hen, and in every grain of corn before it is
put into the soil. All that could be deduced by fair reasoning would
amount to this only, that the life of metals, as the power which effects
and determines their comparative cohesion, ductility, &c., was yet lower
on the scale than the Life which produces the first attempts of
organization, in the almost shapeless tremella, or in such fungi as grow
in the dark recesses of the mine.

* * * * *

If it were asked, to what purpose or with what view we should generalize
the idea of Life thus broadly, I should not hesitate to reply that, were
there no other use conceivable, there would be _some_ advantage in merely
destroying an arbitrary assumption in natural philosophy, and in reminding
the physiologists that they could not hear the life of metals asserted
with a more contemptuous surprise than they themselves incur from the
vulgar, when they speak of the Life in mould or mucor. But this is not the
case. This wider