Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/38

 6 effects of this vital energy are still more stupendous in the operations constantly going on in every organized body, from our own elaborate frame to the humblest moss or fungus. Those different fluids, so fine and transparent, separated from each other by membranes as fine, which compose the eye, all retain their proper situations (though each fluid individually is perpetually removed and renewed) for sixty, eighty, or a hundred years, or more, while life remains. So do the infinitely small vessels of an almost invisible insect, the fine and pellucid tubes of a plant, all hold their destined fluids, conveying or changing them according to fixed laws, but never permitting them to run into confusion, so long as the vital principle animates their various forms. But no sooner does death happen, than, without any alteration of structure, any apparent change in their material configuration, all is reversed. The eye loses its form and brightness; its membranes let go their contents, which mix in confusion, and thenceforth yield to the laws of chemistry alone. Just so it happens, sooner or later, to the other parts of the animal as well as vegetable frame. Chemical changes,