General indications which relate to the laws of organic life / by Daniel Pring.

  • Pring, Daniel, 1789-1859.
Date:
1819
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General indications which relate to the laws of organic life / by Daniel Pring. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    The advocates on either side of this question respedivelyj assert, on the one hand, that life is produced by the co-opera- tion of the corporeal functions ; on the other, that life is not an effect of the material structure, but a principle superadded to it. Without designinjr (o enter deeply info this dispute, it may be inquired, if life is a product of (he functions^ or of the mechanism, what makes the mechanism, or the functions ? As the mechanism falls to decay, and as the f unctions cease^ when life is extinct, it may be fairly presumed that life is instrumen- tal to the formation and establishment of both. If it be said that the structures are formed, and the functions commenced, from a nucleus of peculiar construction, produced from a pa- rental stock ; I reply, that this is attributinjs^ more to con- struction or mechanism than is ai^reeable with analogy. We have no instance of a mechanism which can produce, or reno- vate itself, from its elements. Is the action of the heart, or the action of any otlier muscle, or is the secretion of urine by the kidneys, bile by the liver, mucus by theintestines, pus from raw surfaces, &c. to be explained by any resemblance which the construction of these organs bear to the known examples of mechanical arrangements which produce motion ? At least, it is incumbent on those who would assert the afTirmative, to shew by what powers in mechanics these animal movements, and these processes, are accomplislicd. It must be confessed that there are in animals peculiar pro-* perties, which are concerned in their functions : if it be said that these are properties of the matter of which animals are composed, intending thereby a contradistinction to a superadd- ed vital principle, the difference of opinion upon this question then becomes little more than verbal, to all the purposes of an investigation of the laws of these properties. To state the argument more concisely, it may be asserted by one party that the properties of life have no existence, except in connection with matter ; and by the other party, that the properties of life had an existence distinct from matter, and are, iu the form of a ▼ital principle, superadded to matter. \