norganic to the organic does not take place directly ; but the anorganic passes into the merorganic, and the merorganic into the organic. What is the indispensable condition of this final passage ? What is it which makes the merorganic substance vital ?
We have already considered organic substances under their two preliminary aspects of elementary composition and synthesis (LAWS I. and II.) ; and, if I have at all succeeded in the exposition, it will not be difficult to gain a clear, firm conception of the third and final process—that, namely, of Form. For Organic matter is differentiated from Inorganic as much by its Form as by its elementary structure.
Before explaining my own view, it will be well to cast a glance at the evidence furnished by crystals :
Crystallization has always seemed to conceal the first beginnings of the phase named Organic, because in crystals we first meet with definite constituent forms, i. e., with Form as a necessary and inseparable condition of their existence as crystals. Inorganic matter can, we know, assume indifferently any shape without thereby losing its properties. But in a crystal the Form is essential—the solution which will become crystallized by even so slight a disturbance of its equilibrium as the touch of a feather, is not yet crystal; it only becomes a crystal when its molecules assume a determinate form.
But there are many obvious and some fundamental distinctions between the highest crystal and the lowest example of organic life, which prevent our accepting crystallization as the transition phase between the inorganic and the organic. Of these distinctions it is enough to name the most striking, viz., the organic cell undergoes a series of transformations, and reproduces itself; the crystal undergoes no transformations, and never reproduces.
It is true that a French chemist, M. Brame, has quite recently made a wonderful discovery, which—if it be established—shows that previous to crystallization certain bodies assume an embryonic cellular condition, the outgrowth and consequence of which is a crystal ; and, what is still more remarkable, in this cellular embryo not only has the microscopic cell an enveloping membrane, enclosing within it a soft semitransparent matter containing vapour, which when condensed forms a crystal (thus furnishing both " cell membrane" and "cell contents"), but these cells assume an arrangement very analogous to that of the organic tissues ! Granting, however, all that M. Brame claims, his discovery reveals nothing of the passage from the inorganic to the organic—it only enlightens us on the formation of crystals. Instead of showing the crystal as an organic beginning, it shows the crystal as a consequence and outgrowth of an organic beginning. We might thus define crystals to be arrested life.
Moreover, the results of all researches into the chemistry of organized bodies show that the proximate principles of the organism are disposable into three classes :
1. Principles of mineral origin which are crystallizable, and which quit the organism such as they entered it.
2. Principles which are crystallizable, formed in the organism, and generally quitting it in the shape of excremental products, such as they were at their formation.
3. Principles which are coagulable but not crystallizable, formed in the organism with the aid of materials for which the first class serve as a vehicle, and decomposed in the place of their formation, thus furnishing the materials for the principles of the second class.
These last are the only true organic principles, and are precisely demarcated from the crystallizable principles. We must not, therefore, look to crystals for the element of Form we are now seeking, simply because crystals never attain the teleorganic condition.
Confining ourselves, as we have done hitherto, to the teachings of observation and induction, we have to ask this question : What is the Form which being universal may be supposed indispensable to organic life?. Half the prosperity of philosophy lies in being able to put a definite question. Interroga