Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, June 24, 1870 (IA b22307643).pdf/14

12 of an immaterial and independent organic law working within.

If in fine it is ascertained beyond all doubt that, in respect of its materials, a living body contains no more than it has received; that, however strange and mysterious its organs and their functions, the warp and woof are of substances with which we are acquainted under simpler conditions, cannot. the same be maintained of the form and forces it exhibits?

To begin with the lowest series of living things. There will probably be no hesitation in admitting that the vegetable kingdom is no more than an expression in a higher form of the terrestrial conditions which even common experience proves to be in a general way necessary to vegetable life. And this admission will be freely made, though the infinite details it includes have yet to be made known. Thus the fulfilment of the Almighty fiat-"Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after