THE VITAL PRINCIPLE.

Organic and inorganic beings.

— 2. Life and death. — 3. Intelligence and instinct.

Organic and inorganic beings.

Organic beings are those that have within themselves a source of intimate activity that gives them life. They are born, grow, reproduce by themselves, and die. They are provided with special organs for carrying out the various acts of life, organs appropriate to the needs that self-preservation imposes upon them. In this class are included men, animals, and plants.

Inorganic beings are all those that lack vitality, lack movement of their own, and are formed merely by the aggregation of matter. Such are minerals, water, air, etc.

Is the force that unites the elements of matter the same in organic and in inorganic bodies?

“Yes, the law of attraction is the same for all.”

Is there a difference between the matter of organic bodies and that of inorganic ones?

“Matter is always the same, but in organic bodies it is animalized.”

What is the cause of the animalization of matter?

“Its union with the vital principle.”

Does the vital principle reside in some particular agent, or is it simply a property of organized matter? In a word, is it an effect, or a cause?

“It is both the one and the other. Life is an effect due to the action of an agent upon matter. That agent, without matter, is not life, just as matter cannot live without that agent. It gives life to all the beings that absorb and assimilate it.”

We have seen that Spirit and matter are two constitutive elements of the Universe. Is the vital principle a third?

“It is, without a doubt, one of the elements necessary to the constitution of the Universe, but it too has its origin in modified universal matter; 2 for you, it is an element, like oxygen and hydrogen, which, nevertheless, are not primitive elements, for all of this derives from a single principle.” a — It would seem to follow from this that vitality has its principle not in a distinct primitive agent, but in a special property of universal matter, due to certain modifications.

“This is a consequence of what we have said.”

Does the vital principle reside in any of the bodies we know?

“It has for its source the universal fluid; 2 it is what you call the magnetic fluid, or animalized electric fluid.

It is the intermediary, the link existing between Spirit and matter.”

Is the vital principle one and the same for all organic beings?

“Yes, modified according to the species.

It is what gives them movement and activity and distinguishes them from inert matter, since the movement of matter is not life. This movement matter receives, it does not give.”

Is vitality a permanent attribute of the vital agent, or does it develop only through the functioning of the organs?

“It does not develop except with the body. Did we not say that this agent without matter is not life?

The union of the two is necessary to produce life.”

a — Could it be said that vitality is in a latent state when the vital agent is not united to the body?

“Yes, that is so.”

The set of organs constitutes a kind of mechanism that receives its impulse from the intimate activity, or vital principle, that exists among them.

The vital principle is the motive force of organic bodies.

At the same time that the vital agent gives impulse to the organs, the action of the organs maintains and develops the activity of that agent, almost as happens with friction, which develops heat. Life and death.

What is the cause of the death of organic beings?

“The exhaustion of the organs.”

a — Could death be compared to the cessation of movement of a disorganized machine?

“Yes; if the machine is poorly assembled, the movement ceases; if the body is sick, life is extinguished.”

Why does a lesion of the heart cause death more quickly than lesions of other organs?

“The heart is a machine of life, but it is not the only organ whose lesion causes death. It is no more than one of the essential parts.”

What becomes of the matter and the vital principle of organic beings when they die?

“Inert matter decomposes and goes on to form new organisms; the vital principle returns to the mass from which it came.”

Once the organic being is dead, the elements that compose it undergo new combinations, from which result new beings, which draw from the universal source the principle of life and activity, absorb and assimilate it, in order to restore it again to that source when they cease to exist.

The organs are impregnated, so to speak, with this vital fluid, and this fluid gives to all the parts of the organism an activity that places them in communication with one another, in cases of certain lesions, and normalizes the functions momentarily disturbed. But when the elements essential to the functioning of the organs are destroyed, or very profoundly altered, the vital fluid becomes powerless to transmit to them the movement of life, and the being dies.

More or less necessarily, the organs react upon one another, this reciprocal action resulting from the harmony of the whole that they form. Should this harmony be destroyed, by whatever cause, their functioning ceases, like the movement of a machine whose principal parts become deranged. This is what happens, for example, with a watch worn out by use, or one that has suffered a shock through accident, in which the motive force is powerless to set it going again.

In an electrical apparatus we have a more exact image of life and death. This apparatus, like all the bodies of Nature, contains electricity in a latent state. The electrical phenomena, however, are not produced except when the fluid is set in activity by a special cause. One could then say that the apparatus is alive. When the cause of the activity ceases, the phenomenon ceases: the apparatus returns to the state of inertia. Organic bodies are thus a kind of battery or electrical apparatus, in which the activity of the fluid determines the phenomenon of life. The cessation of that activity causes death.

The quantity of vital fluid is not absolute in all organic beings. It varies according to the species and is not constant, whether in each individual or among the individuals of a species. There are some that are, so to speak, saturated with this fluid, while others possess it in a quantity barely sufficient. Hence, for some, a more active, more tenacious, and, in a certain way, superabundant life.

The quantity of vital fluid is exhausted. It can become insufficient for the preservation of life, if it is not renewed by the absorption and assimilation of the substances that contain it.

The vital fluid is transmitted from one individual to another. He who has it in greater portion can give it to one who has too little, and in certain cases prolong a life on the point of being extinguished.

Intelligence and instinct.

Is intelligence an attribute of the vital principle?

“No, for plants live and do not think: they have only organic life. Intelligence and matter are independent, since a body can live without intelligence. But intelligence can manifest itself only by means of the material organs. It is necessary that the Spirit unite with animalized matter in order to intellectualize it.”

Intelligence is a special faculty, peculiar to certain classes of organic beings, and which gives them, along with thought, the will to act, the consciousness that they exist and that each constitutes an individuality, as well as the means of establishing relations with the exterior world and of providing for their needs.

The following may thus be distinguished: 1st, inanimate beings, constituted only of matter, without vitality or intelligence: these are brute bodies; 2nd, animate beings that do not think, formed of matter and endowed with vitality, but destitute of intelligence; 3rd, animate thinking beings, formed of matter, endowed with vitality, and having in addition an intelligent principle that grants them the faculty of thinking.

What is the source of intelligence?

“We have already said it; the universal intelligence.”

a — Could it be said that each being draws a portion of intelligence from the universal source and assimilates it, as it draws and assimilates the principle of material life?

“This is no more than a simple comparison, and yet an inexact one, because intelligence is a faculty proper to each being and constitutes its moral individuality.

Moreover, as you know, there are things that it is not given to man to penetrate, and this, for the present, is one of that number.”

Is instinct independent of intelligence?

“Precisely, no, for instinct is a kind of intelligence.

It is an intelligence without reasoning. It is by instinct that all beings provide for their needs.”

Can a line of separation be established between instinct and intelligence, that is, can it be determined where one ends and the other begins?

“No, because they often blend together; 2 but the acts that proceed from instinct can be very well distinguished from those that are of intelligence.”

Is it correct to say that the instinctive faculties diminish as the intellectual ones grow?

“No; instinct always exists, but man disdains it.

Instinct can also lead to good; 3 it almost always guides us, and sometimes with more certainty than reason. It never goes astray.”

a — Why is reason not always an infallible guide?

“It would be infallible, were it not falsified by bad education, by pride, and by selfishness.

Instinct does not reason; reason permits choice and gives man free will.”

Instinct is a rudimentary intelligence, which differs from intelligence properly so called in that its manifestations are almost always spontaneous, whereas those of intelligence result from a combination and a deliberate act.

Instinct varies in its manifestations, according to the species and their needs. In beings that have the consciousness and the perception of exterior things, it allies itself with intelligence, that is, with will and freedom.