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AUTHOR: 
 
 CALLEJA, CAMILO 
 
 TITLE: 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF 
 UNIVERSAL ... 
 
 PLACE: 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DA TE : 
 
 1889 
 
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 0131 
 
 Calleja, Gamilo. 
 
 Principles of universal physiology. A reform in the 
 theories of physics, chemistry, biology, and cosmology, 
 by Camilo Calleja, m. d. London, K. Paul, Trench & co.i 
 1889. 
 
 vii, 146 p. IQi'*. 
 
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PRINCIPLES OF 
 UNIVERSAL PHYSIOLOGY 
 
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 PRINCIPLES 
 
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 UNIVERSAL PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 A REFORM IN THE THEORIES OF 
 
 PHYSICS, CHEMISTRY, BIOLOGY, AND COSMOLOGY 
 
 BY 
 
 CAMILO CALLEJA, M.D. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO.. i PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 1889 
 
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 PREFACE. 
 
 [The rights of trtuulmtion and of rt^odttction art rtserved.] 
 
 This little book is a compendium issued in advance of 
 a complete work called '* Universal Physiology," which 
 intends to reform the whole theory of Natural Science— 
 i.e., Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Cosmology. This 
 comprehensive theory, which completely rectifies the 
 opinions held by the authors of such treatises, we call 
 Physiological. We adopt the word Physiology in its 
 etymological sense — discourse of Nature; and though 
 it has been very commonly employed by authors instead 
 of Biology, our application of the word coincides with 
 this meaning also, inasmuch as that the primordial effects 
 in nature are those of living bodies called by authors 
 physiologic. This Physiology is qualified as " Universal " 
 in order to denote that we comprehend the theory of 
 Nature in abstract, without detailing any particulars or 
 
 concrete facts. 
 
 This Physiological Theory is developed with the sole 
 guarantee of the uniformity of Nature, and is based on the 
 
 /300T6 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 vii 
 
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 principle of conservation alone, which asserts the unques- 
 tionable truth of the inertia of matter. It fulfils the 
 greatest necessity of mental speculation, discovering the 
 unity of all objective knowledge ; for as the universe is 
 a system, a theory of its activity must be universal and 
 not partial, and if a mutual connection does indeed exist 
 among all material changes, our reason logically theo- 
 rising must arrive at unity. It sustains that the first 
 effects in the worid are those of vitality, from which all 
 other material changes are uniformly derived by simple 
 propagation of movement with conservation of energy; 
 and it asserts that the continuity or persistency of 
 Cosmos in its uniform actual state depends on the 
 Supreme Power, which directly acts in organism alone. 
 Hence the so-called physical, chemical, vital and cosmic 
 forces are not causing agents, but mechanical results 
 in accordance with the true law of inertia, for matter 
 is not capable by itself alone of producing any change. 
 Universal Physiology, comprehending the whole theory 
 of Nature, must study it both analytically and syntheti- 
 cally ; from this arises our classification of its departments 
 into two groups. Analytic and Synthetic Physiology,— the 
 former including General and Special Physiology, and 
 the latter Biology and Cosmology, of course in the 
 abstract sense. Hence the following order in its division : 
 1st, General Physiology, which comprehends the most 
 
 abstract ideas of matter and its first analytical link ; 
 2nd, Special Physiology, which treats of every material 
 change in particular, in order to rectify the theories on 
 Molar Mechanics, Heat, Chemistry, Sound, Light, and 
 Electricity; 3rd, Biology, which makes the partial 
 synthesis of Nature, embracing the living world alone 
 in order to discover the combination of changes in or- 
 ganism ; and 4th, Cosmology, which explains the total 
 synthesis of Nature — ^^., the combination of all 
 changes in Cosmos, showing the organic origin of all 
 phenomena, even those of so-called universal attraction, 
 as gravity, planetary movements, terrestrial magnetism, 
 affinity, etc. 
 
 The book opens with an "Introduction," giving the 
 logical and physiological data necessary to develop and 
 understand the Physiological Theory; and closes with 
 a recapitulation of our principal conclusions. 
 
 C. C. 
 
 London, July, 1889. 
 
 4'- 
 
I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORY. 
 
 LOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DATA, 
 
 CHAP. I. Province and Division of Universal Physiology. 
 M II. Principal Cause of Doctrinal Errors. 
 „ III. Objective or Cosmic Perceptions. 
 „ IV. How Physiological Knowledge is Acquired. 
 „ V. Proof of Physiological Data. 
 
 VI. Conservation of Energy in Cosmic Mechanism. 
 
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 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORY. 
 
 LOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DATA, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PROVINCE AND DIVISION OF UNIVERSAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 The mechanism of the world consists in the conservation of 
 matter in movement. The abstract ca ising or generating 
 forces, as attraction, affinity, etc., which are the image of the 
 supposed anima mundi of the ancient philosophers, must never 
 more be admitted, because they are always the effect of pro- 
 pagation. If, sometimes, we do not discover direct propagation 
 in a change, it is because there are indirect transmissions across 
 invisible means. This solution, given to the greatest physio- 
 logical problem, is justified in this book. 
 
 The problems which are within the sphere of Natural 
 Philosophy or Physiological Science are exclusively mechanical 
 or material ; for those of conscious activity, or the spiritual, are 
 of intrinsic, supersensual or supernatural resolution, and belong 
 to the sphere of Metaphysics. Conscious activity peculiar to 
 the mind is a necessary condition of the mental fruit called 
 
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 . ,'lciT^^Dl/CT/ON. 
 
 • • • .• • 
 
 '• • • 
 
 I'deasy very (liferent fifoAi: Jhi • i^aterial work of the general 
 activity of Cosmos, wliicli* presupposes nothing but move- 
 
 ment. 
 
 • • • • 
 
 Scientific works riiaty' tie* 'either theoretical or practical ; the 
 chief aim of the former being to make discoveries, and that of 
 the latter the application of these discoveries to the uses or 
 necessities of human life. We group the theoretical sciences 
 under the name of Philosophies, as their sole object is 
 wisdom or the love of knowledge; we group the practical 
 sciences under the name of Philotechnigs, their aim being 
 to know in order to act — i.e.y a practical love for doing or 
 working. 
 
 In Philosophies it is necessary to distinguish three kinds of 
 knowledge : first differentiating the divine from the human, 
 and in the human the supersensual from the sensual, as it is 
 impossible to establish any notion which comprehends at once 
 both the Creator and the created, and in the created both 
 mind and matter. Accordingly, we here establish the separa- 
 tion of supernatural from natural philosophy : the first is the 
 science of the immaterial, comprehending Theology and Psycho- 
 logy ; the second is the science of the material world, including 
 Physics, Chemistry, and Biology in their abstract and descrip- 
 tive sense. This science of the material world we call Universal 
 Physiology; its departments may be classified into abstract 
 and concrete. Abstract Physiology studies the notions or 
 concepts of Nature apart from the objects from which they are 
 taken — that is, the objective knowledge of generalisation. 
 The purpose of this work, then, is Abstract Physiology, in 
 which the word " abstract," on account of its obsv .e sense is 
 substituted by the word "Universal." The aim of Concrete 
 Philosophy is to investigate real existences of natural beings 
 as concrete things, definite in their acts; it comprehends 
 
 P/^0 VINCE AND DIVISION OF UNIVERSAL PHYSIO LOG Y. 5 
 
 Mineralogy (including Descriptive Chemistry and Geology), 
 Concrete Biology (Botany and Zoology), Descriptive Geography 
 and Astronomy. 
 
 The province of Abstract or Universal Physiology (that is, 
 of these " Principles ") being already determined, we will now 
 give a slight idea of its departments, formally studying the 
 general principles which are the base for the general theories 
 — that is, those principles which make common reference to 
 all natural changes, and afterwards occupying ourselves with 
 the particulars referring to all kinds of changes which will be 
 determined as different in their classification. From this 
 arises our division of Analytical Physiology' into General and 
 Special : as in the analytical investigation of Nature, we will 
 first study the general principles of all phenomena, and after- 
 wards the variety of phenomena in particular. 
 
 Accordingly, General Physiology treats of resolving questions 
 which are usually badly classified as Metaphysical ; Special 
 Physiology studies what is generally called Physical Theory 
 and General Chemistry ; and Synthetical Physiology compre- 
 hends Abstract Biology and Cosmology. 
 
 Without a previous knowledge of universal notions we cannot 
 scientifically know the particular, as the latter are implied in 
 the former. Therefore we will begin to treat the Physiological 
 Theory by the study of General Physiology, in which the 
 concepts common to all objects are treated of. Following 
 this will come Special Physiology, which will study separately 
 the theory of every class of phenomena ; and finally will come 
 Synthetic Physiology, which studies the living being in its 
 general form of aggroupation, and the phenomenal genesis of 
 Cosmos as the effect of vitality, so that this part is subdivided 
 into Biology and Cosmology. 
 
 The Analytical part, then, comprehends the theories of the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 constitution and activity of matter in general, the theory of 
 Molar Mechanics, Heat, Chemical Affinity, Sound, Light, and 
 Electricity. Biology and Cosmology, which study the syn- 
 thetical abstraction of Nature, are no more than an application 
 of these changes or mutations to the vital and cosmic synthesis 
 —that is to say, to those engendered functions which taken 
 together are called vitality and cosmic activity. 
 
 The material changes or mutations of organism are of two 
 kinds : manifested or phenomenal, and non-manifested or latent. 
 The first may be either molar or molecular, according as the 
 movement is visible or otherwise ; the molar are of two orders, 
 contraction and reproduction. Accordingly, four kinds of 
 functions of vitality result : contractile, reproductive, trophic 
 (thermo-chemical or molecular), and nervous or latent. This 
 last is the most primordial act of vitality, and from this cir- 
 cumstance is erroneously considered by authors as automatic. 
 Physiological Synthesis may be either partial, referring to the 
 living individual; or total, referring to the Cosmos. The 
 partial synthesis may be called micrologic, and the total 
 cosmologic. In addition to this, if we divide all objective 
 study into descriptive and genesic, it results that Synthetic 
 Physiology comprehends four dep-.rtments : Organic Micro 
 graphy, Organic Microgeny, Cosmography and Cosmogeny. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 PRINCIPAL CAUSE OF DOCTRINAL ERRORS. 
 
 The conceptual elements of objective being or real nature 
 are four : two are attributive abstractions (abstractions of an 
 entity in itself) — substance and activity : and the other two 
 are relative abstractions — space and time (abstractions of 
 different entities among each other). When an entity is not 
 defined, its four abstractions are also indefinite, and from 
 this arise chimerical, ontological concepts : and when the 
 entity is defined by our sensual observation or experience, 
 then the four elemental abstractions are also defined, and 
 from this arises true physiological concept. When this 
 distinction is not well established, the metaphysician, influenced 
 by ontological errors, has the tendency to pantheism and 
 idealism, and the physicist or naturalist for the same reason 
 usually falls into atheism and materialism. If these abstractions 
 in regard to the Infinite Being are confounded with the finite, 
 we then fall into the error of considering them as really 
 existing not in the Divinity, but in themselves ; and if the 
 abstractions regarding the finite being or Nature are considered 
 as exclusive existences, the result is the false supposition that 
 matter is in itself alone the only principle of the Universe, 
 and Nature then should be governed by itself alone, as is the 
 idea of transformism. 
 
 In Physiology (comprehending the whole science of Nature) 
 it must not be forgotten that the object pursued is partial, 
 that this science does not comprehend all knowledge, and 
 therefore must not deny the existence of those sciences^which 
 
8 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 1 1 
 
 treat of that which is beyond our extrinsic sensations, and 
 that the inquiry into Metaphysics (Theology and Psychology) 
 IS of a different order from the inquiry into Physiology. 
 
 Physiology has been contaminated by the ontological errors 
 of the metaphysicians : thus, for instance, it is a relic of realism 
 to consider as entities or beings of separate existence the 
 concepts and even the conceptual elements which are formed 
 by mental abstraction from our external experiences. Thus 
 also it is realistic to consider as separate existences every one 
 of the different kinds of phenomena-as caloric, luminous, 
 magnetic and electric agents, molecular forces, planetary 
 attractions, etc. 
 
 In Psychological theory the same error is also freq'uently 
 found-/>., to individualise as realities the different conscfbus 
 activities, and from this results the admission of plurality instead 
 of unity in our mental power. 
 
 There is nothing absolute in Nature ; or, better to say, our 
 understanding does not and cannot know physical unity 
 entity or type in absolute, either of quality or of quantity. 
 There is no absolute material substance, no absolute activity, 
 no absolute space, and no absolute time. We do not objectively 
 recognise anything which may be an absolute cause or principle ; 
 all that is physiological (Nature) is an effect or medium.' 
 Kvery form of material existence suffers perpetual changes, 
 undergoes incessant mutations which are not primordial, but 
 derived by propagation. Manifested existence depends on 
 mutual actions among objects, and on the interaction of these 
 with the mind from which we form the relations of the objects 
 and consequently all their possible knowledge. Notwithstand' 
 mg this evident truth, the greatest minds occupied in scientific 
 speculations have forgotten it when they suppose the ultimate 
 elements or real constituents of the world, atoms, monads, etc , 
 
 PRINCIPAL CAUSE OF DOCTRINAL ERRORS. g 
 
 are absolute realities. Atoms are erroneously considered 
 absolutely simple and indivisible, as if they were the last 
 elements of the material world, the physical unities absolutely 
 constant which by their aggregation form the Universe. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OBJECTIVE OR COSMIC PERCEPTIONS. 
 
 The acts of feeling and thought are symbolised in an entity 
 which we call Mind. We say that the mind, in substitution of 
 the personal subject, feels and thinks ; the product of feeling 
 we call sensation, and that of thinking, thought. When we 
 think, we affirm or deny, we agree or disagree ; the resultant of 
 such a mental action we call judgment, and the capacity which 
 contains all judgment is symbolised in the word criticism. 
 If the result of the comparison of two concepts asserting 
 either an agreement or disagreement in the relations which 
 they express is a judgment, and a comparison of judgments is 
 a reasoning, by reasoning then we arrive at inferences (induc- 
 tions and deductions) and calculations in which the expressed 
 relations are known either by perceptible sensations (categoric 
 knowledge) or by ideas acquired from pure thought (hypo- 
 thetic knowledge). The first relies upon the direct proof of 
 experience in order to be considered as evident truth ; while 
 the second is not within the direct reach of the senses, but is 
 warranted by the laws of thought and the rules of art which 
 direct reason (Logic and Mathematics). 
 
 When we reason we can compare in two ways ; therefore 
 there are two kinds of operations in reasoning : one purely 
 logical— comparison of quality ; the other mathematical— QQm- 
 
1 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 parison of quantity. By the power of reasoning man can 
 foresee what he has not seen, foretell what he has not heard, 
 predict what is going to happen. But to accomplish this 
 supreme operation of the mind we need theories whose 
 starting-point is in the principles which are the subject of 
 study in this work. 
 
 The knowledge which is the fruit of thought takes thought 
 with its laws for a means, but the primordial or fundamental ideas 
 are always derived from intrinsic and extrinsic sensations, that 
 is to say, from the primordial facts which our mind discovers 
 by immediate or direct perception, they being isolated without 
 any connection in the existent system, and so lacking scientific 
 character. Therefore intuitions do not belong to Physiology, 
 but to Ideology, a department of Psychology. In truth, the 
 perception of objects is not complete as scientific knowledge 
 until they are assimilated and classified ; mental assimilation 
 demands the ideal decomposition of objects into sensations, 
 and classification requires the recomposition of the ideas by 
 thought. Without these two circumstances our mind could 
 not define or specify any object ; it would only contain a vague 
 and general idea of them. One thing is not quite definite 
 while we are not able to refer it to one of the known classes, 
 or at least while we cannot establish the relations fixing the 
 similarities and diflerences with any of the classes already 
 known. We comprehend the importance and necessity of 
 classification only by noticing that all the terms of language 
 are general, and therefore they presuppose the element of 
 classification. Nouns express only abstract ideas of attribu- 
 tion or of relation ; and they always imply classification in 
 their meaning, as to name a thing or apply any term as a 
 predicate is an act of abstraction which presupposes classifica 
 lion. 
 
 #v,. 
 
 OBJECTIVE OR COSMIC PERCEPTIONS. 
 
 II 
 
 The total result of the process of extrinsic perception is 
 the concept of objects in their relations with the different 
 qualities or states of the receiving subject or mind. This 
 makes it appear to us that the objects are contained in the 
 mind ; but such contents are only objective symbols, and 
 thus we acquire the knowledge of objective perception, not 
 by inference, but by the association of those symbols. It is 
 not the eye which truly sees the object, nor is it the ear 
 which hears and understands ; it is the mind itself. Indeed, 
 light, sound, or any one of those changes of the world which 
 produce the activities present in the mind, is not perceived 
 by the senses, though by a figure of speech we say to see 
 with the eyes, to hear with the ears : what happens is that 
 we see, hear, etc., by means of the senses, but we perceive 
 only with the mind. The initial activity of perception 
 depends on the interaction excited between the mind and 
 the senses by the object ; all that happens afterwards is a con- 
 sequence inherent in subjective activity, association, uncon- 
 scious suggestion, and reflection. We could not possess any 
 idea of identity and consistency among objects if the mind 
 constantly reacting did not correct the appearances of the 
 sensations, but was strictly limited to the impressions pro- 
 duced by the senses. The mind is the sole thing which has 
 the power of elaborating sensations and thoughts, in the same 
 manner as the ovule is the sole object from which an organism 
 can be formed. 
 
 Objective perception involves not only presentation of ideas, 
 but also their representation — that is, the manifestation of 
 ideas previously formed by objective sensations. Furthermore, 
 the reproducing elements of knowledge (representation) are 
 more important than the elements acquired in actuality (pre- 
 sentation). For this reason the processes of presentation and 
 
13 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 representation are necessary at the same time in order to 
 acquire the scientific knowledge of Cosmos (Physiology). 
 
 There are forms of representation, however, which do not 
 involve any perception of actual presentation: such are the 
 acts of memory and those of imagination ; but even then the 
 object may also be suggested by the senses through the act 
 of association. Therefore mature perception involves in some 
 manner representative activity, though in many perceptions 
 presentation plays an important part, while in some others, 
 being purely representative, it constitutes a special phase of 
 mental activity in which the elements can even be combined 
 in new forms. 
 
 The following circumstance in regard to representations is 
 worthy of mention in Physiology. A case experienced will 
 be more exactly reproduced the more links of connection 
 there are among the data, of sensation, as it will then be 
 more intelligible. In fact, if the connection among the data 
 is known, it is enough to remember the premises in order 
 to call to mind the conclusions, if we have rational or philo- 
 sophical memory ; on the contrary, if the elements of mental 
 connection are lacking, the case is easily forgotten, except by 
 one of those irreflexive or spontaneous memories which, by 
 a sort of unrolling of words, can reproduce them without 
 any other connection than the immediate succession in which 
 the words were acquired. 
 
 INTRODVCTION. 
 
 n 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOW PHYSIOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE IS ACQUIRED. 
 
 No theory can be the fruit of intuition, — it is the fruit of 
 thought ; and a physiological theory must not be invented by 
 imagination, but planned by inferences and calculations which 
 are the fruit of reason. 
 
 Objective perceptions are the data for the knowledge of 
 Cosmos, and our ideas of the world are conceptual, or formed 
 by mental abstraction. The interaction of matter and mind 
 may produce either subjective differences — qualitative ideas, or 
 objective differences — quantitative ideas of space and time. 
 The subject is known by qualities or attributive differences 
 alone, and not by quantitative differences. The object, on the 
 contrary, is known by quantitative differences or different 
 relations, and not by qualitative differences either of substance 
 or activity : that is, objective perceptions which are the data 
 for the knowledge of Cosmos or ideas of the world are con- 
 ceptual, or formed by mental abstractions from sensations 
 whose differences are only in quantity. 
 
 Matter and Mind (object and subject) can only be known 
 by their reciprocal action (interaction) \ there is no state of 
 consciousness regarding the knowledge of matter in particular 
 which is not determined by such mutual action. Now, if we 
 think that objective knowledge or material nature is valid, we 
 must admit also that there is a fixed relation between its 
 antecedents ; the sensations which result from the interaction 
 of things and mental activity must produce the same percep- 
 tion when the extrinsic excitation is the same. Nevertheless 
 
H WT/iODUCTION. 
 
 errors of perception may occur either by perturbation in the 
 means of transmission (abnormal nervous action), or by 
 differences in the association of ideas, or else by the arbi- 
 trariness of which mental influence is capable above all in 
 its most essential product— language,— which is so frequently 
 fallacious. All these may change the conditions of pro- 
 pagation either materially or verbally, and therefore may 
 change the antecedents of perceptions. 
 
 From this idea given about scientific acquisitions it results 
 that our physiological knowledge is based or founded in 
 mutual actions among objects— that is, in their relations— 
 because all the properties of an object are finally reduced to 
 the condition of producing effects by interaction among things, 
 and such effects in order to determine sensations must produce 
 some change in the organs of sense, manifesting themselves to 
 the mind after their propagation through the nervous con- 
 ductors and centres. A thing alone cannot be known or 
 conceived, because its existence would not be the object of 
 sensation or of representation in thought. A thing really 
 objective, then, is a term in an infinite series of things which 
 are in mutual dependence, as without this there is no possible 
 form of known reality either by experience or by pure thought. 
 Accordingly the physiological determinations generally 
 considered as qualitative are relative as well as those usually 
 called quantitative. Quality directly results from the mutual 
 action between the objects and the mind by an immediate 
 connection without reflexion— irreflexive perception or attribu- 
 tion; and quantity is a relation (either numerical or of 
 extension) among terms (which of course are not absolute) 
 by mediate or reflexive connection— reflexive perception or 
 relation properly so called. There is nothing, then, truly 
 attributive in objects ; as the attribution or difference of quality 
 
 HOW PHYSIOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE IS ACQUIRED. 15 
 
 is purely subjective or mental, while objective differences, on 
 the contrary, depend on quantity, and these are material or 
 mechanical relations. Let us, then, fix well in the mind the 
 idea that determinations of quantity only, and not those of 
 quality, can be deduced one from another by our mind in 
 accordance with general laws, physiological inquiries being 
 of that kind. 
 
 The starting-point of thought in following the process of 
 mental elaboration is the comparison of intuitions ; and these 
 are of two kinds, intrinsic and extrinsic. The assertion is 
 completely different in accordance with the class of intuitive 
 premises of thought; the assertions inferred from intrinsic 
 intuitions are purely mental (immaterial, spiritual, meta- 
 physical knowledge), while the truths inferred from extrinsic 
 intuitions are sensual or material— that is to say, physiological 
 knowledge. For psychological knowledge the mental ego has 
 in itself an exclusive right, as nobody but one's self can 
 directly perceive the acts of self-consciousness. The limit of 
 physiological or natural knowledge— that is to say, knowledge 
 about extrinsic or objective things — is experience ; Nature or 
 object is equally common to the observation of all minds, 
 and the perception of its changes is the right of everybody. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PROOF OF PHYSIOLOGICAL DATA. 
 
 Phenomena or manifested changes of objects are the data for 
 the senses, and ideologists usually say that such data may be 
 contradictory one with another, and therefore deceitful. But 
 all physical or natural reality is material, and its knowledge is 
 derived from what is manifested by the senses. If the sole 
 
 
i6 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 proof Of physical reality is sensual experience, the assertion 
 that the testimony of the senses is deceitful is not true; in fact. 
 the sensations may deceive us, but they are also the testimony 
 to prove the evidence of our knowledge. The data of the 
 senses may be contradictory if we take for a moment only 
 one sensual datum isolated from the data of the others • for 
 any sensual datum whatever is complementary, and needs to 
 be rectified by other data taken by the same sense or by 
 the others. The true distinction between what is apparent 
 and evident in nature is that the apparent is a partial inquiry 
 or a contribution to the total evidence. An illusion of the 
 senses results from testing them in an inconvenient and 
 mcomplete manner, so leaving the assertion without evident 
 confirmation. 
 
 It is clear that all sensual proof requires the reflection of 
 thought, and therefore that all knowledge, including the 
 experimental, is not only the fruit of observation, but also of 
 reasonmg. Knowledge is always, in fact, the fruit of mental 
 elaboration ; it is a reflective and not an immediate act • it is 
 without any doubt an intellectual product, and not alone a 
 sensual one, but to prove the truth in the interpretation of 
 natural phenomena, experience must supply numerous and 
 correct facts. From these facts of observation we acquire the 
 separate primordial ideas which are the basis for the knowledge 
 of jmture, as without such a foundation the human mind 
 could build only a fantastic world, and whimsically fix laws 
 to govern it. 
 
 The power of the mind in the study of nature must be 
 limited to discover, not to invent. Hence pure reason alone 
 IS not sufficient to form a rational theory, nor are the particular 
 ex^nences (which are under the jurisdiction of the senses) 
 sufficient to elaborate a theory, as this is a mental synthesis 
 
 I 
 
 
 * 
 
 CONSERVATION OF ENERGY, 
 
 17 
 
 Both orders of mental activity are complementary in the acqui- 
 sition and proof of physiological science ; both, then, must work 
 together to arrive at the rational conceptions of true generalisa- 
 tions, and to prevent us from reaching imaginary results. 
 
 Pure thought without a deep observation of phenomena can 
 give rise to imaginary ideas alone, which are ordinarily only 
 chimerical suppositions — at least, when they refer to the theory 
 of nature, like the innumerable hypotheses of the Greek 
 philosophers. But to believe in our external sensations 
 without submitting them to the examination or proof of 
 reason frequently produces false conclusions also; as, for 
 instance, we could think the sun revolves round the earth 
 if we trusted the evidence of our eyes alone. 
 
 Strictly speaking, experience is the source and proof of all 
 knowledge of nature, but the generalisation of ideas in science 
 is far beyond the limits of our sensual observation, which must 
 be subordinated to the supreme capacity of the mind— reason. 
 Thus, in a figurative sense we can say experience, supplying 
 the particular facts as antecedents, is the mother of science ; 
 and reason, elaborating the generalisation necessary to the 
 speculations of theory, is its mentor. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CONSERVATION OF ENERGY IN COSMIC MECHANISM. 
 
 To find the general law or sole synthesis of the material world 
 has always been the unanimous desire of the great scientists, 
 and a comprehensive law of all Cosmic Mechanism Las' 
 been found in a quantitative relation. We have reached the 
 knowledge of the following law, which denotes a relative 
 
 

 i8 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 unity : In nature there is conservation or persistence of the 
 same quantity of moving matter. Reason proves that the 
 great principle of quantity called "conservation" is the true 
 and just one, and not a chimerical aspiration of science, 
 because, though phenomena are constantly manifested as newly 
 engendered, it is only by an effect of the propagation of latent 
 or potential energy. Hence such a principle of conservation, 
 like the law of inertia, simply means that material energy is 
 never annihilated nor created in absolute. 
 
 In apparent opposition to this unity of Cosmos, observation 
 supplies us with a multiplicity of qualities of objects which 
 are separately perceived by the irreflexive mind as different 
 sensations altogether. Our consciousness, in truth, perceives 
 the different sensations as if they were many other primordial 
 properties, and consequently in the attributions or qualities we 
 do not find any reason common to all objects which could 
 explain the unity of Cosmos. Such a reason we find only in 
 objective relations. 
 
 Let us now see what kind of relation explains such a unity. 
 We know that the establishment of a relation or proportion of 
 quantity needs at least two perceptions, and the act or mental 
 repetition gives us the idea of number-that is, the difference 
 between unity and plurality. We also know that quantity can 
 be either discrete or continuous : with discrete quantity the 
 combinational operations of mathematics or algebraic calcula- 
 tions are made ; and with continuous quantity the extensional 
 operations of geometrical studies. Both kinds of quantity may 
 be either numerically undefined or definite; nevertheless it 
 can be said that we see in nature infinite forms of extensional 
 or continuous quantity, while combinational or discrete 
 quantity supposes invariability, as abstract number is employed. 
 Besides, extrinsic or objective perceptions can be quantitatively 
 
 CONSERVATION OF ENERGY. 
 
 «9 
 
 L_ 
 
 compared, but intrinsic or subjective perceptions cannot be 
 admitted to comparison under the standard of abstract number. 
 Hence the capacities of the mind are not of mathematical 
 application : this can be made only with the acts of the material 
 worid, which are manifested by the senses as natural phenomena, 
 and which are collected by our understanding as a basis for 
 natural science— Physiology— under the principle of conser- 
 vation with the standard of abstract number. 
 
 All physiological energies, phenomena as well as latent 
 changes, are the effect of matter in movement, this being 
 always equal in its total force, energy, power or intensity. 
 This is the true mathematical reason of the relative unity of 
 cosmic mechanism. If there is always the same discrete 
 amount of matter in movement in Cosmos, we can derive from 
 such a principle all the other physiological laws which are 
 considered by the authors as the primordial laws of Nature. 
 Calling R and F the cosmic energies, comprehending those 
 in a latent state as well as those manifested, we can condense 
 this law into the formula R = F : that is, the resulting energy 
 of a change equals the force employed to produce it. But 
 this axiom of persistence or conservation of energy needs a 
 universal complement : this is the vital or organic reason called 
 the principle of uniformity of nature y which must depend on 
 the existence of only one primordial power— that is to say, 
 on the absolute unity of the Supreme. Hence we proclaim 
 a true scientific monotheism, according to which only one 
 cause of uniform involution of inert matter exists, and that 
 is the Creator. 
 
 i 
 
PART FIRST. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 CHAP. VII. Matter in General. 
 
 VIII. Ponderable Matter (Atoms). 
 IX. Imponderable Matter (Progene). 
 X. Constitution of Bodies. 
 XI. Inertia of Matter. 
 XII. Generation of Phenomena (Cause of the System). 
 
 / 
 
PART FIRST. 
 
 PRIMCIPLES OF GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MATTER m GENERAL. 
 
 The terms matter and force are in reality synonymous, and not 
 complementary ; each alone truly represents the whole of an 
 objective thing ; they are neither separate nor jomed, but 
 one thing alone. Some who object, as we do, to such a 
 distinction try to remedy it by saying that force is nothmg 
 but movement, and therefore that the only thing opposite to 
 force or movement is mass. But mass and movement, like 
 matter and force, are not complementary, they are inseparable ; 
 in fact, there can be no mass without movement, and no 
 movement without mass. What, then, do these terms mean ? 
 They are nothing but symbols of concepts of mental abstrac- 
 tions taken from cosmic mechanism, physiological universe 
 or material nature. Thus, when we refer to mass we mean 
 gravity exclusively, which is a resultant of movement; but 
 because of this we must not forget that that which may be 
 a manifested object cannot be passive matter ; that when we 
 speak of active movement it is only to differentiate it from 
 
 / 
 
24 
 
 GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 MATTER IN GENERAL. 
 
 relative repose, as objects are always in movement either actual 
 or potential. 
 
 It is evident that a pure movement, separate from all bodies, 
 .s an impossibility; and we must say the same of the other 
 correlative terms, the true proposition being that in the real 
 concept of any of the terms, matter, mass, force or move- 
 ment, the four conceptual elements are comprchcnded-that 
 .s to say, the four universal abstractions of objects : substance, 
 activity, space, and time. 
 
 Force is the measure of the movement propagated from one 
 object to another, and its inten^ty depends on the relation 
 among the four abstractions here mentioned. We have re 
 peatedly said that most authors consider matter as forming with 
 force an aggregate or compound, and that this idea is evidently 
 false. Nevertheless we still further criticise this point, because 
 It has in Its favour many strongly rooted opinions. Physicists 
 suppose mass and movement not only as real elements of 
 matter, but also as always existing each in the same quantity 
 in Cosmos ; this affirmation also, thus enunciated, completely 
 acks foundation, because mass and movement, as well as any 
 other relation, are susceptible of increase and diminution. 
 Agam, m ordinary mechanics mass and inertia are considered 
 as synonymous terms, and are measured by the force of acce- 
 leration or of deviation in the movement of a body-that is 
 by the force which is necessary to propagate movement to a 
 given body in order to determine in it some velocity This 
 use of the words mass and inertia is of course limited to 
 atomic matter alone, with the abstraction of the differences of 
 place or position of bodies. 
 
 Mass, movement, matter, and force are not only inseparable 
 concepts in reality, but they are not even separable in thought 
 All are terms of relations among objects of sensible experience-' 
 
 45 
 
 
 
 without any other difference among them than that which they 
 have in abstract language on account of the omissions or 
 ellipses which are necessary to scientific explanations. Such 
 differences are therefore only verbal ; they are only differences 
 in words, and not in the real or true propositional sense. We 
 need not refer back to the realism of the middle ages to see 
 the conceptual elements of things confounded with objects of 
 sensation ; such an error is the cause of modern physicists 
 cheating themselves in interpreting nature by their mechanical 
 atomic theories. This error has produced the most contra- 
 dictory consequences, and has given rise to endless discussions 
 without any foundation. 
 
 Abstract force is not a real thing or individual entity which 
 can be directly presented to the observation of the senses, or 
 that can be known objectively by thought. It is nothing more 
 than a definite determination by thought in the relations or 
 mutual dependence of matter — that is, of mass in movement. 
 Abstract force is merely a result of calculation of movements 
 whose measure is the dynamic correlation between the ante- 
 cedents and consequents of a physical change. Nevertheless, 
 force, like physical cause, is a term of quantitative rela- 
 tions necessary in our discourse and in our thoughts. We 
 must set aside the definitions of the word force given by the 
 authors, as they all suppose it to be a real and distinct thing 
 in nature. 
 
 The same criticism * which establishes the relativity of move- 
 ment is what has served us to settle the relativity of activity, 
 space, and time ; and it only remains for us now to apply what 
 is said about the relativity of substance to that of mass also. 
 The measure of the mass of a body is inverse to the accelera- 
 tion produced by a given force, and the measure of a force is 
 * This may be seen in the unabridged edition. 
 
26 
 
 GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 determined by the acceleration produced in a given mass. 
 The ordinary method, then, to determine the mass of bodies 
 by their weight is merely an arbitrary agreement among 
 scientists ; it is not based in the nature of anything. More- 
 over, the weight of a body does not depend on itself in absolute, 
 but on its relations with others, differing according to the posi- 
 tion of the body, and especially according to its distance from 
 the centre of gravity of the earth, because the velocity of falling 
 bodies near the surface of the earth is greater than if the experi- 
 ment is made at a great elevation, as is proved by the oscillations 
 of the pendulum. By inferring the ultimate abstractions of 
 the object we arrive at the conclusion that the two universal 
 attributions — substance and activity — are of the same nature 
 through all Cosmos. 
 
 Although the reduction of all chemical elements to one 
 alone is practically impossible, to assimilate all to the same 
 substance is a theoretical necessity, because, as we have seen, 
 all the differences among objects are quantitative; this fact 
 truly implies the reason of substantial identity among all of 
 these and among all their constituent parts, whether they 
 are ponderable (atomic matter) or imponderable (progenic 
 matter). 
 
 We have proclaimed the similarity of essence or nature in 
 all objects, and in consonance with this idea it seems we have 
 answered the practical question which has tormented thinkers 
 from the earliest age of science : this is, the problem of the 
 possibility of the transformation of matter into a single element, 
 the resolution of which was vainly tried by alchymists. The 
 results of the experience in chemical analysis are practically con- 
 trary to that idea of analogy in the quality of bodies, because 
 there are more than sixty different kinds of elements which 
 cannot be resolved into one another, and for this reason they 
 
 MATTER IN GENERAL. 
 
 27 
 
 are considered as simple bodies within the limits of chemical 
 analysis. This proof is not sufficient reason to consider them 
 as indivisible or irresoluble in mental speculations, and there 
 are many facts besides which induce us to see fundamental 
 connections among the simple bodies. Among other facts 
 we must keep in mind that the slightest change in the numeric 
 relations of elements produces the greatest changes in our 
 qualitative perceptions. It is possible to conceive the chemical 
 species obtained by actual analysis as elemental in a series of 
 varieties of a single substance which differ only in their rela- 
 tions or atomic and progenic dynamism. This possibility of 
 descriptive analogy must not be confounded with the mono- 
 mania of evolutionism, which does not accept anything as 
 already made or created in such a state, because even if the 
 idea of material equality could some day become a practical 
 fact, this would not be advantageous for the speculative asser- 
 tions of transformism ; for the true unity of the system consists 
 in the unity of principle and plan alone, and not in similarity 
 in the substance and activity of material. 
 
 Neither must we confound the physiological phrase of 
 material similarity with the ontological phrase of common 
 substance, because this is only an abstraction born from the 
 irreflexive experience of the fact that many different things can 
 be made of the same material. Atoms and progenic parcels 
 are real parts, and must be considered, as well as the totality 
 of the Cosmos, as things in activity, and not as a passive 
 
 substratum. 
 
 Material substance is either ponderable or imponderable : 
 the former is a condensation into diminutive, indivisible particles 
 called atoms, and the latter is the ether of the physicists, which 
 we call progene, and which, in opposition to the indivisible 
 corpuscles or atoms, is distributed into variable parcels. To 
 
28 
 
 GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 have a complete idea of the world in its general sense, we 
 must make further application of the general concept of matter 
 to Its two fundamental forms separately, and afterwards consider 
 them both together in the constitution of bodies 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PONDERABLE MATTER (aTOMS). 
 
 Physicists, by their opinions on the concept of matter 
 are generally divided into two parties, both standing on a 
 false basis-that of realising an abstraction : one is the cor- 
 puscular school, and the other the dynamic. The first in 
 particular occupies our attention, for it is generally admitted 
 by the authors. 
 
 Atomism conceives all matter as formed of passive diminu- 
 tive corpuscles, endowed with extension-atoms, or, what is the 
 same, a pure mass to which forces are aggregated, and so 
 It pretends to explain the identity of matter, considering the 
 atom as a common element and principle of unity. Physicists 
 m their verbal speculations have arrived at the supposition 
 that such material entity is simple or elemental, without 
 distmction of quality of any kind, equal or identical in all 
 things, and being an agent or unity in itself. According to 
 atomism, everything should be an aggregate of such atomic 
 entities-that is, a particularisation by means of special marks, 
 owing only to differences of numeric quantity and geometric 
 forms of atomic aggroupation. If they consider the atom as 
 simple, elemental, and existing in and by itself, they recognise 
 It as a universal being, extending this supposition to all 
 
 PONDERABLE MATTER (ATOMS). 99 
 
 objective things, which according to their view are only formed 
 by collections of atoms. 
 
 We must explain that which appears to be by that which 
 really is ; but the concept of atomism does not follow such 
 a maxim, as it is contrary to the exigencies of science, and is 
 so deficient besides that we cannot derive from it the explana- 
 tion of physiological manifestations. Furthermore, it is notably 
 strange that even the most eminent physicists agree in sus- 
 taining that the weight of atoms, though unknown in absolute, 
 must be primordial, inherent or persistent under all conditions 
 of position and combination; and chemists wholly deduce 
 the present chemical hypothesis from such an erroneous 
 assertion. From Dalton the hypothesis of chemical atoms 
 has been considered as a true interpretation of the laws of 
 definite and multiple proportions, supposing that the relations 
 in weight according to which the bodies are combined represent 
 the weight of the most diminutive particles called atoms. The 
 system of atomic weights as adopted at present is based on 
 the discovery of the law of volumes (Gay-Lussac), and chemists 
 say that the cause of the definite proportions in which bodies 
 are combined when they form different compounds is that all 
 the atoms corresponding to the same species of elemental 
 matter are equal and indivisible. 
 
 Chemists also sustain that when different molecules move to 
 form a combination it is because they are mutually attracted— 
 that is, they have aflSnity. This is not to interpret a pheno- 
 menon ; it is simply to say a combination occurs " because . . ." 
 
 In the literal sense affinity is a selective force, and at the 
 same time universally engendered; that is to say, a force 
 inherent to matter considered sometimes as endowed with 
 sympathetic attraction, and at others with antipathetic repulsion. 
 This is a contradiction to the principle of the conservation of 
 
 
 ^^SS, 
 
30 
 
 GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 energy and to the laws based on physiological facts. Such 
 an impossible notion about abstract forces in mechanism 
 must be substituted by the theory of direct impulse of matter 
 whose variable parcels (progene) and indivisible particles 
 (atoms) are in intermotion. 
 
 We must consider atoms as corpuscular elements having 
 some invariable form, but with relative penetrability in their 
 corresponding porocular spaces, which are occupied in part 
 by the progcnic parcels. Thus conceiving the atom, we can 
 perfectly explain the phenomena presented in bodies — that is, 
 the physical or chemical changes, or, better to say, physiological 
 changes, — but thus we do not resolve in any manner the 
 problem of Genesis or that of Primordial Causality. Therefore 
 we must not think with the atomist that the properties of all 
 bodies result from the accumulation of atoms : these are not 
 absolute unities, they are only relative ; we cannot discover 
 i n them more than a secondary activity, and that is movement 
 which in abstract cannot be more than an idea of quantitative 
 distinctions or relations. The qualitative distinctions or attri- 
 butions of objects exist only in the mind of the spectator 
 through the differences among the sensations there formed. 
 Again, we must not consider atoms as in mutual absolute 
 independence, but as dependent and subordinate particles in 
 which there is no proper cause to produce in the natural 
 order the combinations for the collocation of matter in the 
 acts of vital generation. The most primordial effects of the 
 order of the System we shall find only in ovular existence or 
 
 Vitality. 
 
 If the sole mode of change in atoms is movement, in this 
 must consist the difference among the so-called atomic pro- 
 perties. To determine the properties and forms of bodies we 
 must directly refer, not to similar properties and forms of 
 
 PONDERABLE MATTER (ATOMS), 
 
 31 
 
 atoms, but to their dynamic relations with progene as well 
 as among themselves, including here also "solidity," which 
 must undoubtedly be a product or dynamic result, and not 
 an immutable attribute. Atoms cannot be considered as 
 endowed with absolute or immutable extension, because in 
 separating from one another, more or less as an effect of 
 the changes in progenic oscillation, they acquire the control 
 of more or less space, and from this arise thermic variations 
 m volume. Neither can atoms move from their places without 
 the interference of some forcing power : this means to say 
 that the qualities of bodies which we may comprehend under 
 the term " materiality " depend as proximate effects on the 
 mutual action, intermotion, of ponderable and imponderable 
 elements, and not on properties inherent to atoms. Further- 
 more, atoms could, perhaps, statically, completely fill space, 
 but being then in a passive state, they could not represent 
 or reveal anything to our perceptions ; in order to produce 
 sensations they must be in activity or movement— that is, 
 dynamically — in which state it is impossible to imagine the 
 absolute fulness of space. In fine, in the phenomenal world 
 or manifested reality, even extension and penetrability (in 
 atomic parcels as much as in bodies) are variable as a result 
 of the changes of movement, which vary in quantity or in- 
 tensity according to the energy, not of one part, particle or 
 parcel alone, but in accordance with the interaction of all 
 those which act in contact. The properties of atoms, then, 
 depend proximately on their interaction with progene, and 
 the objective primordial effects are those of vitality. 
 
J I 
 
 3a 
 
 GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IMPONDERABLE MATTER (pROGENE). 
 
 Some scientists have fruitlessly endeavoured to explain the 
 phenomena of nature without recognising in Cosmos anything 
 but ponderable matter. We must admit a relative, not an 
 absolute dualism in objective things, recognising two kinds 
 of matter, because some propagations of changes in irradiation 
 without visible movement, as sound, light, and radiating heat, 
 and also the latent or potential states, as electricity, can only 
 be explained by means of an imponderable matter which we 
 call progene. This matter, which is already actually admitted 
 by almost all physicists under the name of ether, to explain 
 light, heat, and electricity, must also be recognised as the 
 means through which sound is propagated. (This will be 
 explained in the Second Part.) 
 
 Bodies are complex objects constituted by the fundamental 
 forms of matter, ponderable and imponderable. Hence sub- 
 stances actually considered as chemically simple, are simple 
 only in a relative sense, considering ponderable matter alone. 
 There is no more than a simple object in all nature ; this is 
 the interstellar progene— that is, the ultra-atmospheric meta- 
 fluid which is generally recognised by physicists as the great 
 ocean of imponderable ether. 
 
 We have proved the necessity of admitting in science 
 qualitative identity among the things of nature, although this 
 is not a fact of irreflexive experience. Reason teaches us 
 that all objective difference is quantitative, and therefore 
 that, within the reach of our perceptions at least, there is 
 
 IMPONDERABLE MATTER (PROGENE). 
 
 33 
 
 nothing perceptible in Cosmos but the relations among the 
 parts without any essential or attributive distinction. All 
 changes appreciable to the senses— that is, physiological 
 phenomena, progenic as well as molecular and molar— consist 
 in changes of matter in movement derivatively produced by 
 the mutual action of cosmic parts, the change effected being 
 primordially in vital genesis. In the changes of nature, even 
 in those called imponderable (progenic were a better name), 
 there is mutual or reciprocal quantivalence : by this we mean, 
 that the same force necessary to produce a determined con- 
 sequent must be employed to effect the inverse change— that 
 is, to produce that which was antecedent by means of the 
 other, which before served as a consequent. Progene, there- 
 fore, differs from ponderable matter in quantity only: the 
 quality or essence of all objects is the same. 
 
 The constitution of imponderable matter has been very 
 much discussed, some authors sustaining that it is atomic 
 (discontinuous), and others that it is continuous matter. 
 Neither of these two extreme opinions can be accepted. The 
 arguments given in favour of the atomic idea prove no more 
 than that there is no continuity in progene. The facts 
 observed in progenic propagations induce us to conceive 
 progene as distributed in parcels which may exchange matter 
 among themselves without any limit existing to such divisi- 
 bility. On the other hand, the admission of vacuum is as 
 necessary to the theory of Cosmos as is that of atoms them- 
 selves. In fact, vacuum is necessary in order that atoms and 
 progene can move: yet it is not absolute, it is only relative ; 
 porocular space is full, although in an interrupted manner, of 
 imponderable matter or progene in movement. There exists, 
 then, a relative vacuum among atoms which is not permanent, 
 but which is successively occupied and interrupted by the 
 
 3 
 
 'k 
 
34 
 
 GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 constant change of position of imponderable matter— inter- 
 stellar and interstitial progene in movement. 
 
 We shall see in the progenic theories of Special Physiology 
 and Synthetic Physiology that the propagations through inter- 
 stellar progene must be instantaneous, including their two forms, 
 photothermic irradiations as the sunlight, and thermic as the 
 invisible propagations of the planets. 
 
 The sun is nothing more than a great focus of progenic 
 reflection, transferring the thermic irradiations which are 
 produced in the planets by living bodies, especially by animals, 
 into photothermic irradiations or light. The sun has no 
 proper force of attraction or of emission ; the changes of 
 interplanetary gravitation we shall see explained in Biology 
 by the periodicity of vital activity, especially in vegetables, 
 gravity resulting from the transference of ultra-atmospheric 
 radiations of progene into movements of the mass of our 
 planet. Accordingly the hub of material circulation is the 
 potence of Vitality, and not any force of solar irradiation nor 
 any other of mere mechanical character, as gravitation. 
 
 This is not the opportune place to consider at length the 
 parallel and diflercncc between gravitation and the forms of 
 radiating action of progene ; but we will make this distinction 
 clear, in order to avoid confusion and to relieve ourselves from 
 combating in detail most of the arguments which have been 
 advanced against the concept of gravitation as explained by 
 progene (imponderable ether). 
 
 Gravitation, according to our hypothesis of progene, is a move- 
 ment precisely opposite to that of radiation : it is a movement 
 in which the resultant forces are approximated or concentrated 
 in the direction of the propagation according to the ratio of 
 the square root of the distance ; while in radiations like those 
 of light the resultant forces, on the contrary, are eccentric, 
 
 IMPONDERABLE MATTER (PROGENE). 
 
 35 
 
 separating in the direction of propagation in the ratio of the 
 second power of the distance. Thus, then, a power of radiation 
 is centrifugal, while gravitation is centripetal ; radiation is an 
 efferent action from the forces, and gravitation is the reverse, 
 afferent towards the forces of the sphere in action. In spite 
 of such antagonism, the action of gravitation is not a thing 
 absolutely different from irradiation; both are direct effects 
 from the movements of the same intermediate agent — progene ; 
 their differences are relative, and we have effectively marked 
 as the sole distinctive character between them that they are 
 opposite in their directions, from this alone arising the 
 antagonism of the interstitial effects in bodies. Irradiation 
 being eccentric or centrifugal, acts as a repulsive force in its 
 molecular transferences, and gravitation being on the contrary 
 concentric or centripetal, acts as an attractive force ; and from 
 this arises the physiological analogy between the phrases 
 universal attraction and universal gravitation. 
 
 We do not deem worthy of consideration the objection in 
 regard to interplanetary gravitation made by Arago, who has 
 said there is no reason to doubt that the action of gravity 
 is instantaneous, anj that if universal attraction were the 
 result of the impulsion of a fluid, its action must need a 
 definite time in crossing the immense distance which separates 
 the celestial bodies. This criticism would be fatal if we 
 consider interstellar progene of an atomic or absolutely 
 discontinuous constitution, as atomists see gases when they 
 are highly rarefied, but it does not in any manner affect the 
 concept formed by us of interstellar fluid. 
 
 Other contrarieties of the hypothesis of ether have resulted 
 from endowing imponderable meta-fluid with inherent elasticity ; 
 and, according to the authors, with this condition it should be 
 provided with a force of pressure proportional to its density 
 
36 
 
 GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 It is inconceivable that a perfectly simple and imponderable 
 means should be elastic, and still less that it should be 
 dense. 
 
 Here we will make no further mention of progenic changes, 
 because they will form the topics of Progenic Physiology in the 
 Second Part. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF BODIES, ESPECIALLY OF GASES. 
 
 The true atomic and molecular constitution of bodies exists 
 only in their gaseous state, and for this reason the study of the 
 constitution of gases is the most interesting. To think rightly 
 on the constitution of gases, it is necessary first to fix the facts 
 establishing the generalisations called laws, and afterwards to 
 select the theoretical ideas that must be considered as evident 
 or very probable in order to infer a logical interpretation of 
 such empirical laws. These are three : ist, All gases (simple 
 and compound) change volume equally when they are subjected 
 to the same variations of temperature and pressure ; 2nd, All 
 gases have the same fixed relation (with slight differences) 
 between their capacity under a constant pressure and their 
 capacity under a constant volume ; 3rd, Gases are combined 
 in very simple relations (first digits or the most simple fractions 
 I, 2, 3 . . . . 1^, ^, §), and the resultant of a combination of 
 gases is also in a simple relation with the sum of the com- 
 ponents. 
 
 For the interpretation of these facts we must remember the 
 true concept of matter and that of the constitution of bodies 
 in general, without forgetting principally the influence of the 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF GASES. 
 
 37 
 
 universal means — imponderable matter or progene. We must 
 not admit in our reasonings the intervention of absurd mo- 
 lecular forces, nor of other actions at a distance. 
 
 The relations of volumes before expressed show us that 
 gaseous bodies have their particles distributed with regularity, 
 and that they can be considerably separated from one another 
 in comparison with their volume. Therefore the energy of 
 progene among the minimum particles must be equal through- 
 out when the gas does not experience any change either of 
 temperature or pressure, for progene being free, any change 
 of temperature will be propagated through it to re-establish a 
 uniform equilibrium. Thus, for instance, when the capacity 
 of the vessel which contains a gas is reduced, the pressure will 
 increase first on the particles nearer the walls of the vessel, but 
 will be at once transmitted by means of progene as far as the 
 most distant ones, and so the volume of the gas will be reduced 
 with sensible equality in all its parts. When a gas is heated, 
 progenic energy is propagated to it; the increase of energy 
 may be only in the velocity of its oscillations, or in its ampli- 
 tude ; the former occurs when a gas is completely enclosed in 
 a constant volume, and the latter when the pressure limiting 
 the gas is constantly the same — that is, when the gas can freely 
 expand according as it is heated. From this it results that 
 every gas must have its particles more or less separated in 
 relation with the temperature and the pressure, the intervals 
 being equal in all parts of the same gas if they are submitted 
 to the same conditions of temperature and pressure ; but the 
 intervals must be different according to the weight and volume 
 of the minimum particles of every gas, because the greater is 
 the atomic matter the greater must also be the quantity of 
 progene, nearly in the relation as i : 2. This is inferred from 
 the 46% loss of force in movement. 
 
 A 
 
38 
 
 GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 This idea is contrary to that enunciated by the hypothesis 
 of Avogadro, which is that cciual volumes of gases or vapour 
 contain the same number of molecules ; but we must remark 
 that Avogadro called molecule a portion of any gas enclosed in 
 a volume always the same for all gases. We see that this is 
 merely a tautological explanation of the laws of Boyle and 
 Mariotte, the same idea defined with synonymous words— that 
 is, that all gases occupy the same volume under the same 
 pressure and temperature. This tells us nothing of the propor- 
 tion of ponderable and imponderable matter in the constitution 
 of bodies ; still less does it take into account the porocules 
 which contain the interstitial progene, and that form part of 
 the volume called by chemists atomic and molecular. 
 
 The adoption of atomic weights is also a conclusion contrary 
 to the said hypothesis, for there is no exact proportion between 
 atomic weights and the density of vapours and gaseous bodies, 
 asi is clearly seen with mercury, phosphorus, arsenic and 
 sulphur. 
 
 Spectrum analysis has given us great knowledge, and will 
 give us still more, on the intimate constitution of bodies— that 
 is, on the arrangement of the particles in the different states, 
 distinguishing the molecules from the hydrocules and orocules' 
 and thus also differentiating the ponderable particles from the 
 imponderable ether or progene existing among the said par- 
 ticles. 
 
 In order to interpret correctly spectroscopic facts, it is 
 necessary to bear in mind that as corporeal particles, being 
 ponderable, must suffer a continual loss of living force, so any 
 of their movements must l)e arrested soon after the action of 
 impulsive force has ceased ; and this affirmation is also appli- 
 cable to vibratory movements, however minute or invisible. 
 
 Therefore the interpretation of light and spectrum according 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF BODIES. 
 
 39 
 
 to the kinetic hypothesis of molecular vibrations is completely 
 erroneous. In our real or practical reflections we can subtract 
 only imponderable matter from the action of gravity, as this 
 is the only substance capable of keeping in movement when 
 ponderable matter is not opposed to it. 
 
 Great differences exist in the intimate constitution of gases, 
 liquids, and solids. In liquids the molecules are not com 
 pletely isolated from one another*— they are grouped in series 
 of twos, so forming hydrocules ; and in solids the hydrocules 
 are grouped in indefinite numbers, forming series of cells 
 called orocules, which, when arranged with harmony, sym- 
 metry, or regular proportions, constitute crystalloid bodies. 
 
 The complete explanation and proof of the constitution of 
 bodies belongs to the " Theory of Heat " in the Second Part. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 INERTIA OF MATTER. 
 
 The realisation of abstractions is nothing in material reality, 
 and nothing can be imagined or can be conceived as resulting 
 from it. Therefore it is as impossible to construct an object 
 by a synthesis of abstract forces as it is by the aggregation 
 of corpuscles absolutely inert or passive. Everything in the 
 Universe is subordinated to the purpose and fixed aim of the 
 Creator, who continually determines the manifested activity of 
 Nature by organic generations ; in organism the transformation 
 of potential (not manifested) changes into actual or phenomenal 
 is constantly produced : we can never find in any object the 
 principle of such constant activity; this always results from 
 the propagation of movement among objects, and this is the 
 
 I 
 
^ GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 true idea of the inertia of matter. Hence inertia does not 
 presuppose want of effected, but of causal activity; the 
 difference between the agency of life and the inertia of matter 
 IS that the former produces manifested generation, while inertia 
 only produces propagation with phenomenal loss. Death 
 does not signify annihilation, but a ceasing of the generation 
 of hvmg force which produces the manifested changes In 
 order that a latent change in a body should become patent, 
 some antecedent determining such conversion is necessary • 
 the organisms are the only laboratory or machines for such 
 a metamorphosis, in which there is profit or multiplication of 
 disposable force, and therefore the true Primordial Cause 
 Of activity m the natural system acts directly in them. That 
 IS to say, the primordial effect in the universe is organic 
 genemion, and from this all physiological knowledge is 
 
 Inertia essentially presupposes force, instead of being an 
 opposite term, as it appears from the etymological sense and 
 vulgar applications of the word. In this sense there is nothing 
 manifested that can be absolutely inert or passive, because all 
 sensual manifestation supposes movement or material activity • 
 thus then, inertia must not be considered as a resistance' 
 absolutely passive. Even the definitions of the ancients 
 express correlation between inertia and force, although, like 
 our contemporaries, they were under the control of the same 
 ontolpgical error. In accordance with Newton, many authors 
 have defined inertia as an inherent force of matter, by virtue 
 of which matter has in itself the power to resist any change 
 from the state of repose and of uniform rectilinear movement 
 bome modem authors, trying to reconcile the vulgar to the 
 scientific sense of the word inertia, say that matter is powerless to 
 change its situation of repose or of movement on account of the 
 
 INERTIA OF MATTER, 
 
 41 
 
 effect of the resistance of mass — that is, of the quantity of matter 
 considered as resistent to the communication of movement. 
 This is neither more nor less than the definition of Newton ; 
 it declares the fact, but leaves it without explanation. 
 
 Absolute inertia, like passive matter or mass in absolute, 
 is nothing. If for a misinterpreted illusion we try to conceive 
 a body as isolated in absolute— that is, alone, without any 
 connection with others, we cannot obtain even the idea of a 
 passive body, because all manifestation results from the mutual 
 action among bodies, and therefore a truly passive object 
 could not be anything perceived by the senses— that is, it 
 could not be known to us. 
 
 The law of inertia is no more nor less than the principle 
 of conservation, enunciated in different words but with exactly 
 the same meaning. The word inertia could be suppressed in 
 science without being missed ; it is simply a brief expression 
 representing the facts of the principle of conservation. 
 
 The law of inertia embraces the animate as well as the 
 inanimate world, the organism of rational as well as of ir- 
 rational beings. The two forms of created activity— which are 
 movement or physical activity, and mind or psychical activity 
 —are both engendered, but how we do not know; we can 
 only say that organised matter is as incapable as inorganic is 
 of originating or producing a primordial activity. 
 
 Movement and repose are not opposite facts, but a purely 
 relative distinction,— as we may consider any object in the 
 universe either as in repose or in movement, according to 
 the point we take as a standard of comparison. Nevertheless, 
 it is a common occurrence with philosophers of nature to 
 suppose they can conciliate in thought the absolute reality 
 of movement and repose with their apparent phenomenal 
 relativity. To heighten this error, some have admitted in 
 
 '^. 
 
4a GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 space a centre or point in absolute repose, to which they 
 could refer the position of all bodies in absolute. This is 
 no more than an expression of chimerical language, abusing 
 its power by making it express even the inconceivable— phrases 
 without any signification of course being the result. 
 
 Movement is the general fact that must be recognised in 
 all mutation or material change, whether manifested or not 
 manifested directly to our senses. It is the ultimatum in 
 our understanding for the interpretation of phenomena and 
 potentiality of nature ; beyond that our rational experience 
 cannot reach. Movement, being an abstraction, cannot be 
 anything primordial : there must exist some why or wherefore 
 in order that objects should move. Observation proves to 
 us the constant laws of mechanical force ; for if a constant 
 reparation were not experienced in the world, all physiological 
 manifestations would soon cease. This is the true concept 
 of material inertia. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Generation of Phenomena : Cause of the System. 
 
 (Conclusion of General Physiology.) 
 
 If we are convinced that every mechanical change springs 
 from movement, it can be in no other manner than as it is ; 
 the variability of cause and effect in the succession of pheno- 
 mena is no more than apparent, because, after a profound 
 analysis of nature, we can say that there is a perfect correlation 
 in mechanical changes between the antecedent and the con- 
 sequent, or in other words between direct or immediate 
 cause and effect. It is an error to confound all the con- 
 
 GENERATION OF PHENOMENA. 
 
 43 
 
 sequences which succeed a change, with that which is really 
 the sole immediate or direct effect from an antecedent, for 
 in language and observation the intermediate changes between 
 facts that appear to be in direct succession are frequently 
 omitted. In the immediate succession of natural mutations 
 a cause can only be followed by an effect, and in the same 
 manner an effect must be preceded only by a cause always 
 identical. 
 
 The validity of this assertion is confirmed by the law of 
 uniform identity, because what is true once must be true all 
 the time if the circumstances of the case are the same. This 
 theoretical truth nevertheless has no practical application, 
 because our power in rational experience is as yet very 
 limited. 
 
 Mechanical activity manifesting change in phenomenal move- 
 ments cannot be admitted as perpetually existing in the world. 
 Phenomena in a simple mechanism cannot persist without 
 some cause acting as a continuous agent or permanent motor, 
 because the weight or force determined by gravity is a constant 
 cause of resistance to sensible motion, for without such a motor 
 gravity would soon neutralise all manifested movements. If 
 a continued perturbation were not produced in vitality, the 
 universe would very soon be reduced to absolute uniformity 
 in movement withou any variation. Such would be the 
 uniform oscillatory movement of progene, it alone would then 
 remain in such activity, which could not be manifested by 
 any sensation, for this supposes change, and it is not possible to 
 perceive anything in the world if it could exist with absolute 
 uniformity. Although material change supposes movement, 
 if matter could exist in absolute, uniform movement, there 
 would be no change— still less changes which are manifested 
 to the senses ; therefore such existence could not be phenomenal 
 
44 
 
 GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 GENERATION OF PHENOMENA. 
 
 4S 
 
 or real, nor could it even find a place in our imagination ; and 
 the universe in such a state of mere illusion, although endowed 
 with oscillatory progenia movement, would have its ponderable 
 matter, and consequently all bodies, in absolute equilibrium 
 without the slightest change either in the masses or in the 
 particles. 
 
 The primordial change effected in Cosmos is the movement 
 of collocation, by which the growth of living bodies is produced ; 
 and such a movement cannot result in principle from another' 
 neither can it be produced automatically : an original gene- 
 rating agent, different from movement, must be the cause or 
 reason of the phenomenal synthesis called vitality. Such a 
 principle of change does not determine, in fact, a complete 
 creation, neither is its effect a true transference ; but it is an 
 engendering propagation : phenomenal energy is multiplied 
 every newly-formed individual acquiring the same capacity a^ 
 Its original, which is a fact contrary to the constant correlation 
 with loss of living force in mechanical propagations. The 
 power of change and proper activity, then, which the Vital 
 Principle necessarily has, must not be considered as movement, 
 but as a Governing Intelligence. From confounding the Primor' 
 dial Energy or True Absolute Cause with the effects derived 
 from material activity, the results are the erroneous conceptions 
 of the atomic theory and of all other materialistic doctrines, 
 including the explanation of cosmic evolution by transformism! 
 There is nothing unconditionally absolute in the physical 
 world or objective reality. In the same manner as there is no 
 absolute passive existence or activity without substance, nor 
 absolute system of co-ordinates in space, nor absolute measure 
 m duration, so there is nothing absolute in nature, however 
 complex the concepts of its abstractions may result ; because 
 all objects experience mutual action, this supposes physical 
 
 change, and physical change is always the relation between 
 two or among many objects. Thus, then, even the word 
 absolute itself, when it is employed in material determinations, 
 implies relativity ; it is no more than an abstraction of relativity, 
 and not the true absolute. 
 
 Phenomena must not be directly referred by their causality 
 to the field of atoms, but to the proximate agency of the 
 Supreme — that is, to the ovule and its derived cellules forming 
 the complex organisms. Hence atomic phenomena are not 
 primordial manifestations of the universal plan, but are derived 
 from the ovular, and those are therefore in a secondary relation 
 to the Primordial Cause. 
 
 It is impossible to construct the System with elements 
 mutually independent ; the action of everything must be 
 (directly or indirectly) determined by the cause of all or unity 
 of system. In mechanism, which is the physiological existence 
 and not the totality of the universal system, we only know 
 the interaction or mutual determination of objects, and these 
 not having any subjectivity, must be originated in their 
 activities by something outside of themselves ; every object, 
 being only a member of the system, must be in accordance 
 with what the necessity of the system; requires. Thus, then, 
 the primordial cause of change in Cosmos must be referred 
 to something foreign to, not within, itself; it cannot be found 
 in the physical elements, as atomists suppose, because other- 
 wise the state of an element at any moment would not be in 
 accordance with the necessities of the others, and in this 
 manner there could be no system. 
 
 An error equal to that of materialistic atomism is the foun- 
 dation of pure dynamism. It is not a syllogistic contradiction 
 to suppose a world of things without extension or mutual 
 relation like abstract forces ; but such things w^ould be inde- 
 
46 
 
 GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 pendent of one another, and then they could not explain the 
 real world in which observation shows us the action among its 
 parts, which form a whole, without any one thing independent 
 of the others. 
 
 Finally, some philosophers affirm that an immutable 
 universe, m absolute repose, is perhaps conceivable by the 
 deductive logic of pure reason ; but even if this were possible, 
 It could not explain any of the phenomena of the real world 
 which in ultimate analysis presupposes beings in movement 
 as capable only of relative change, reciprocally quantivalcnt 
 mtermotion.* Any other conception of matter and of the 
 constituents of bodies would be gratuitous, and must be 
 esteemed as useless, because it is not sufficient that the notion 
 acquired should be, or appear to be, logically consistent ; it 
 must besides include in itself the ground of all possible 
 manifestation. 
 
 We must relegate to the third part of this work, Abstract 
 Biology, the complete interpretation of the mechanical principle 
 —that is, of the so^alled law of conservation or persistency • 
 because this law is only true when it refers to the reality of 
 the System-that is, to the Universe-but not if it is only 
 applied to the mechanism of manifested changes or pheno- 
 menal Cosmos Hence the conservation of material energy 
 comprehends not only the state of active forces, but also 
 potential or latent forces ; and not only mechanical pro- 
 pagations, but also the changes generated in vitality, as the 
 organisms constantly repair the phenomenal energy which is 
 continually dissipated in the inorganic world. 
 
 mot,!!' "" '"'"■"'•"''" ">= in'eraction of objects, as it is nothing but 
 
 I 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 CHAP. XIII. Province and Division of Special Physiology. 
 M XIV. Molar Physics : Visible Movements and Equi- 
 librium OF Bodies. 
 „ XV. Molecular Physics : Heat and Chemical Changes. 
 
 „ XVI. Progenic Physics in General. 
 „ XVII. Progenic Phenomena : Sound and Light. 
 
 XVIII. Progenic Potence (Potential Physics) : Elec- 
 tricity AND Latent Heat. 
 
PART SECOND. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PROVINCE AND DIVISION OF SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 In order to make a correct analysis of nature, we must classify 
 Its special abstractions into logical departments, thus stating 
 the right method which must be followed in its study With 
 this aim we add the following table, which shows at a glance 
 what every department comprehends, as well as the scope of 
 the whole. 
 
 Changes 
 of 
 
 Ponderable 
 Matter 
 
 Changes 
 
 of 
 
 Imponderable 
 
 Matter ; 
 
 Progenic 
 
 Physics 
 
 {Visible masses : 
 Molar Physics. 
 Invisible corpuscles ; 
 Molecular Physics. 
 
 Phenomenal changes, 
 
 or 
 Progenic phenomena. 
 
 Potential changes, 
 
 or 
 .Progenic potence. 
 
 r Statics. 
 \D3rnamics. 
 
 /Thermics. 
 \ Chemics. 
 
 J Acoustics. 
 
 1 Photothermics (Optics). 
 
 J Electrics. 
 
 1 Potential Thermics. 
 
 NoTES.~i. We have adjusted the endings of all these denominations 
 according to the most significant suffix technically employed. 
 
 actual but''" ^?''"''^" '' "°^ ^"P^°^^ '- ^^^ -- -ntraiy to 
 a tual, but as contrary to what is phenomenal or manifest to our senses 
 It is a relative, not an absolute term. 
 
 Let us now give a slight explanation of this table. We see 
 
50 
 
 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 by it that the analytical abstractions of nature are grouped in 
 three great departments, called Molar, Molecular, and Progenic 
 Physics. 
 
 Molar phenomena, which consist in total movements of the 
 whole mass of objects, are recognised in their form by imme- 
 diate perception, that is, by the direct experience of the senses, 
 as we perceive the equilibrium and movement of masses by 
 two senses, touch and sight. 
 
 The forms of invisible movements which are molecular and 
 progenic are inferred from those which are visible. The 
 phenomena resulting from invisible movements may determine 
 either special sensations, as heat, sound, and light, or may be 
 known by many different sensations without any specific 
 perception, as in chemical metamorphoses. Besides the changes 
 here mentioned, we admit others which are not manifested, as 
 they do not produce any phenomena either of special or of 
 different sensations, and for this reason we class them under 
 the head of potential changes. No sense can receive direct 
 sensations from them : we do not perceive progene while it is 
 confined as electricity, or irradiated under infra-luminous 
 conditions as radiating heat. In these cases progene, in order 
 to be manifested, must transfer its motion into one of those 
 changes previously mentioned which are phenomenal, as sound 
 and light, heat and chemical changes, magnetic movements 
 and falling of bodies by gravity. Accordingly, electricity is 
 not a true phenomenal change; nevertheless the effect of its 
 transference into manifested changes are ordinarily, though 
 equivocally, considered as electricity itself. 
 
 The first department, Molar Physics, must not treat of 
 anything but visible states, which may result from translated 
 or from return movements, and translated movements may be 
 either rectilinear or divergent; all these movements may be 
 
 PROVINCE AND DIVISION OF SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 51 
 
 converted into one another, so that ordinary Mechanics will 
 treat of the forms of movement and its transferences, always 
 keeping in mind that in any molar state there is always more 
 than one force in contribution, and therefore the study of the 
 results of one force alone is but an imaginary calculation. 
 The results of massive interferences are the two states of 
 bodies which are considered by irreflexive experience as opposed 
 to each other : one is equilibrium— Statics : the other is visible 
 movement— Dynamics. Molar Physics treats of each of these 
 mechanical states, studying them separately in solids and 
 fluids, liquids and gases. 
 
 The second department is Molecular Physics. The pheno- 
 mena whose movements are not perceived are of two classes ; 
 those which we call molecular are not visible on account of 
 the smallness of the particles in movement, estimating never- 
 theless the consequences of a change in their relative position 
 from which a variation in the relations of space results— that 
 is, either in the dimension or in the composition of bodies. 
 We must not confound these with the movements we call 
 progenic, which, though they are also beyond the reach of our 
 senses, as are the molecular, differ from these because they 
 do not directly produce any change or variation, either of 
 extension or distance, in molecular relations. 
 
 In Molecular Physics we comprehend the thermic and 
 chemical theories. Thermics or Thermology treats of heat 
 —changes of temperature and state, and in addition studies 
 the relations of heat with molar movements in their mutual 
 interchanges, that is, thermo-molar transferences. The Chemical 
 Theory or Chemics is Abstract Chemistry, commonly called 
 by the authors General Chemistry, in which the interpretation 
 of the laws of chemical metamorphoses must be given, studying 
 in addition not only the molar, but also and principally the 
 
It 
 
 II 
 
 52 
 
 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 thermic transferences which compose the treatise entitled 
 Thermo- Chemistry. 
 
 The third department- Progenic Physics— comprehends two 
 very different sections, one treating of phenomena and the 
 other of potential changes. We have included sound and 
 hght as progenic phenomena. Acoustics studies sound in 
 its transmission and production, and this last is ordinarily a 
 transference from the molar movement called vibratory. 
 Optics, or better to say photothermics, treats of light and its 
 molecular and molar transferences. The thermic and chemical 
 transferences of light are very important; but its molar 
 transference needs yet more special attention, because the 
 action of gravity results from it. 
 
 The last section of Special Physiology we entitle Potential 
 Physics, and it treats of potential changes of progene and 
 of its phenomenal transferences. In this section the study 
 of transferences is the most comprehensive, because potential 
 changes (electricity, latent heat) can be produced by any of 
 the forms of manifested movement or natural phenomena, 
 and they can also be transferred into such phenomena. The 
 electric transferences are the most important, and comprehend 
 (i) electro-molar transferences, or total movements of bodies 
 by electricity (magnetism); (2) electro-molecular transfer- 
 ences (heat and chemical combinations); and (3) electro- 
 progenic phenomena (electric sound and electric light). 
 Magnetic phenomena are principally considered as the most 
 peculiar resultants of electric transference. 
 
 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 53 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MOLAR PHYSICS, OR ORDINARY MECHANICS. 
 
 ( Visible Movements and Equilibrium of Bodies^ 
 
 The most apparent phenomena in the world are the visible 
 movements of bodies. Visible movements are of various 
 forms, which can be mutually transferred simply by propagation 
 of energy. It frequently occurs that two or more forces acting 
 on the same body neutralise each other, equilibrium thus re- 
 sulting. Molar physics treats both of the transmission of total 
 movements in their various forms of direction and velocity, 
 and of the conditions necessary among forces to produce 
 equilibrium in bodies. 
 
 The forms of movement directly known or experienced by 
 the senses are only those of bodies when they suffer a total 
 change of place producing variation either in their dimensions 
 or in the distances which separate them from one another, and 
 such molar movements are the data from which our reason 
 infers the forms of invisible movements. Thus, for instance, a 
 change in molar or visible distances is the notion by which 
 we represent in imagination the changes of molecular distances 
 which are invisible. Thus also the propagation of movement 
 by pressure through a liquid to points which are in condition 
 to make known to us the mechanical law of pressure, as in 
 Pascal's apparatus, is what can best illustrate our explanations 
 about the conservation and propagation of invisible movements 
 in progene. 
 
 Here it is very necessary to keep in mind that in the 
 fundamental principle of conservation a distinction must be 
 m^de between manifested or phenomenal energy and that 
 
S4 
 
 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 Which IS latent or potential, as the former keeps the living 
 actual force, while the latter preserves only movements which 
 are dead to our sensations, and are therefore without actuality 
 so to speak. VVe must also keep in mind the continued 
 conversion of phenomenal energy into potential in every molar 
 movement, from which results an inevitable dissipation of 
 living force, estimated in the best machines as almost one- 
 half (46%) of the work employed ; and as such a dissipation 
 of force is owing to gravity, it has induced us to believe that 
 ponderable matter has resulted from the condensation of 
 minute parcels of progene into atoms, the volume being 
 reduced almost one-half (46%). This loss is compensated 
 by the actions of vitality alone; the organisms are the sole 
 machines where the primordial production of living force is 
 effected. Any inorganic machine is only a part of the organic 
 system of the universe ; so that when we make the general 
 abstraction of Cosmic Mechanism we do not count more than 
 secondary effects, in which the propagation of energy is in the 
 consequents alone, not in the antecedents. 
 
 We distinguish two forms of visible movements-one when 
 the body IS transposed or translated, and the other when the 
 body after being removed returns to the same position. The 
 first IS translatory, as the movements of the earth and the 
 falling of bodies by gravity ; and the second is return movement 
 as the vibrations of chords and of all sonorous instruments. 
 We may generalise this fact, and make the same distinction in 
 mvisible movements, distinguishing them as translatory and 
 return also. This will serve us for a basis in the classification 
 of movements, as can be seen in the following table :- 
 
 inrcMTd'to | Translatory | R««'lineal \ Any of these movements 
 their duration | •"■ } fk''ti^^*"' \ '" ''f*™"" '» ""e'r 
 
 their duration 1 °' > /t^'-n''*'"' \ '" «'««■»« to their 
 
 be either I R«"™ | <>c,llatory t velocity may be eitl 
 '^ I. Vibratory ; uniform or variable. 
 
 may 
 
 either 
 
 
 MOLAR PHYSICS. 
 
 S5 
 
 The theory of Molar Mechanics comprehends, first, General 
 Kinematics or Rational Mechanics, and, second, the Special 
 Mechanism of bodies in their different states of solidity and 
 fluidity. It is only necessary for us to mention the most 
 general principles of Mechanics — that is, the rational axioms 
 of forces. We must remember that the idea of movement, 
 whether visible or invisible, is the supreme notion of all 
 extrinsic or physiological experience, comprehending not only 
 the phenomenal, but even what is potential in nature. We 
 must also remember that force denotes the intensity of 
 movement, whose measure is determined by the factors mass 
 and velocity ; mass representing the relative quantity of 
 matter which is contained in a body, and velocity the degree 
 of movement. If we now circumscribe ourselves to visible 
 movements and to the state of equilibrium in Molar Mechanics, 
 force will represent the intensity either in causing or in 
 resisting movement; and when matter is conceived in that 
 state of relative repose which seems contrary to movement, 
 force is then measured by the resistance which is apparently 
 passive — that is, by mass alone. When movements are visible, 
 force represents the product of half the mass by the square of 
 the velocity. This evidently results when we analyse the 
 factors of force in ponderable matter ; but in imponderable 
 matter, when the progene is alone in the immense ocean of 
 meta-fluid, although the force of a movement must also 
 depend on the two factors mass and velocity, these data can 
 only be indirectly determined by their effects on ponderable 
 matter. 
 
 The theory of force comprehends — first, the results of one 
 force alone, and second, the resultant of the composition of 
 forces. In the latter case a distinction is made according as 
 they are parallel or concurrent. The enunciation of the first 
 
56 
 
 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 principle of the independence of forces makes reference to 
 those cases in which they are concurrent. 
 
 Uniformly varied movement is the most important in Me- 
 chanics, as absolutely uniform movement is Laginary f„d 
 
 a body describes m its translatory movement may be either 
 
 Oct. mear or parabolic: rectilinear when all the forces act ,n 
 
 the same direction in the moving body, they having thus onlj 
 
 one rect.hneal resultant ; and parabolic when the forces act in 
 
 'omThl '"""'' '° ''""^ ""^ "'^" °"^ ^^^""''"«=^' --'t^'nt, 
 
 duc^d s""''°K-"°" °' "'"' P-^bolic movements are pro- 
 duced^ Smce this rule was settled, all mechanical problems 
 have been resolved by means of abstract calculations. Never- 
 
 whtTM™"' """ '" "' ™'"P'*^^"°"^ offers some difficulties, 
 which Newton proposed to remedy by means of the following 
 laws o movement, which, rightly interpreted, are not ultimate 
 pnncples, bemg only statements derived from the conservation 
 of energy. 
 
 The text of the first law of Newton is simply the law of 
 mertia only expressed by different words. Inertia of matter 
 IS a fact common throughout all nature, and from it the 
 pnnciple of conservation is inferred. 
 
 Newton's second law says " the sum of movement is pro- 
 portional to the moving force, and follows the direction of its 
 impulse '; but the principle of conservation once understood, 
 this second law, as well as the first, is nothing more than a 
 , tautological explanation, and not a real proposition 
 
 Newton's third law expresses equality in the action and 
 reaction of movement. This statement is very ambiguous, as 
 It does not express the nature of the reaction : it connotes, 
 besides, the idea of the influence of attractive forces, and, as we 
 have set aside the existence of any abstract force, such a law is 
 
 MOLAR PHYSICS. 
 
 57 
 
 
 only a repetition of the second one, which already means 
 equality in the succession of movement, and therefore it must 
 not be considered as a true proposition. 
 
 Newton's fourth law is that of compound forces, which is a 
 mathematical rule to find, by means of the parallelogram, the 
 resultant of two forces when they are concurrent. Such a 
 rule is not an ultimate inference, but a calculation clearly 
 derived from the principle of conservation of energy applied 
 to component forces. 
 
 Thus, then, the law of inertia, that of the proportion between 
 cause and effect or action and reaction, and that of the paral- 
 lelogram of forces, are only different manners of expressing the 
 same principle of conservation ; but at the same time this is no 
 more than the ultimate generalisation inferred from the fact of 
 inertia of matter, and therefore it is not a principle of causal 
 determination, nor an assertion of self-evident truth— its evi- 
 dence results from the establishment of objective relations, 
 including in the world not only phenomenal but also potential 
 changes. 
 
 Mechanics, then, is based on the affirmation of the con- 
 tinuity of movement in space, the assertions of most authors 
 of the continuity of velocity (relation of space and time) being 
 erroneous. 
 
SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 THEORY OF HEAT, 
 
 S9 
 
 ¥\\ 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MOLECULAR PHYSICS : HEAT AND CHEMICAL CHANGES. 
 
 Molecular Physics studies the changes in the disposition 
 of invisible particles of bodies. These changes are :— 
 
 "^of^mel?^ rChanges of temperature 
 
 molecular ] Changes of penetrability 
 QLstances : I or 
 
 heat. I physical states 
 
 r Increase. 
 \ Diminution. 
 
 {Solids. 
 Fluids /L»q"i<ls. 
 t Gases. 
 
 2nd. Changes rindefinite proportions . . . Mixtures 
 of composition-^ Definite proportions (changes of 
 of bodies. \ molecular extension) . . . Chemical changes. 
 
 Like all cosmic changes, thermic as well as chemical activity- 
 are effects subordinated to the principle of conservation of 
 energy. 
 
 Theory ofI£eat—T\\Q present hypothesis of heat is a contra- 
 diction to the fundamental principle of dynamism, and therefore 
 we must qualify it as contra-mechanic, instead of calling it 
 mechanic, as all authors do. 
 
 Heat is not a vibratory movement of the minute corpuscles 
 or molecules of ponderable matter ; and we extend this denial 
 to the propagation of heat. Heat is propagated in two ways : 
 by contraction, and by irradiation. According to current ideas, 
 conduction is explained by molecular collision ; but, as we 
 have denied permanent vibration in molecules, we' cannot 
 explain by it a constant change, as occurs with heat, especially 
 when its conduction is manifest. Interaction, or, strictly 
 speaking, intermotion of progene, is necessary for any thermic 
 change, recognising the permanent oscillation of progene in 
 
 the case of conservation of heat, and some progressive oscilla- 
 tion when there is thermic propagation. This last kind of 
 motion is, at the same time, return and translatory— that is, 
 an intermediate state between conservation of heat (oscillation 
 of progene) and radiation of heat (translation of progene). We 
 shall see that radiating heat is nothing but a factor of the diffuse 
 course of progene, which may be luminous or otherwise—light 
 depending on the rapidity of progenic emissions, and radiating 
 heat depending on their amplitude : for this reason the con- 
 version of the thermic factor of radiating energy into oscillation 
 of progene, or true interstitial heat, most commonly occurs 
 when there is interference between rays of light and ponderable 
 matter. 
 
 Thermic changes are partial movements of bodies in which 
 there is a variation in the disposition of constituent particles 
 without chemical metamorphosis or change of composition 
 being produced ; that is to say, thermic changes are variations 
 in molecular distances. 
 
 All authors falsely suppose at present that minute corpuscles 
 — atoms and molecules — are constantly in vibratory movement, 
 and that on the intensity of this depends the degree of heat. 
 Thermic movement must not be thus interpreted. 
 
 Bodies are constituted of progene and corpuscles; the progene 
 is always in oscillation, but the corpuscles move and are 
 translated by progene only when a change of temperature or 
 state occurs in bodies. When a body suffers change of state 
 it loses or gains some quantity of heat without experiencing 
 any variation in the temperature; the measure of such heat 
 represents the propagation of force from the oscillatory move- 
 ment of interstitial progene to the particles in order to enable 
 them to change their relative position, and from this we infer 
 that during a change of state there is an increase or diminution 
 
 ill 
 

 60 
 
 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 in the energy of interstitial progene, but without any variation 
 in the amph'tude of oscillatory movement. 
 
 We have called heat many different changes, which we may 
 
 classify in the following manner : 
 
 ist. Changes of temperature, which are manifested by the 
 dilatation or the reduction of volume— that is, by variations in 
 the extension of bodies. 
 
 2nd. Changes of physical state by heat, in which we make 
 reference to many concrete facts, called liquefaction, evapora- 
 tion, distillation, ebullition, congelation, solidification, etc. 
 
 3rd. Thermo-chemical changes— that is, the variations of 
 temperature manifested in chemical metamorphoses. 
 
 4th. The changes of propagating temperature, which may 
 be either conduction or radiation of heat. 
 
 All these calorific, or we may say thermic changes, though 
 numerous in the manifestation of their effects, must be com- 
 prehended in a unity of proximate cause; this is the oscillatory 
 movement of progene. But we must except radiating heat, 
 as m this the propagation is made by translatory movement. 
 
 To raise equal weights of different substances to the same 
 temperature, different quantities of heat are necessary : such a 
 relation is called specific heat ; and in order to determine it 
 numerically, the heat necessary to raise the temperature of a 
 kilogram of water from zero to one degree centigrade is taken 
 as a unity, called a calorie. Specific heat is in inverse ratio 
 to atomic weight-that is, to the gravitating force of atoms- 
 because the greater the resistance of the atoms to separation 
 by oscillating progene, the smaller is the quantity of heat 
 necessary to manifest an increase of temperature, while, on the 
 contrary, the lighter the atoms the more heat will be expended 
 m their progressive movements, from which the dilatation of 
 bodies results. 
 
 THEORY OF HEAT. 
 
 61 
 
 The amplitude of progenic oscillations cannot increase or 
 diminish without separation or approximation of the molecules, 
 producing in the first case dilatation, and in the second thermic 
 reduction ; and these changes of intermolecular distances must 
 have for a limit the moment when a change of state in bodies 
 is determined. 
 
 The calorific capacity, or better to say calorific necessity, 
 and the calorific tension of bodies are directly proportional, be- 
 cause the said tension representing the quantity of dilatation is 
 a true molecular work manifested by the dilatation of the body; 
 and calorific capacity representing the quantity of heat neces- 
 sary to dilate bodies must be, like heat necessity, directly pro- 
 portional to the bodies of molecular reclusion, which depend 
 on the action of gravity. The unity of concept of molecular 
 reclusion is badly represented by physicists with the word 
 attraction, which must be substituted by gravitation. The 
 greatest condition of molecular reclusion depends on the 
 physical state of bodies ; next to this condition is the relation 
 of atomic weights and densities ; and the degree of cohesion 
 is also worthy of notice. 
 
 There are two different changes in the increasing and de- 
 creasing of heat ; the change may be simply in the temperature 
 without any dilatation in the body (pure progenic change), and 
 there may also be a change of temperature with dilatation 
 (double change, progenic and molecular). In the first case 
 there is only a variation of the movement of progene, and in 
 the second there is besides some translation of the ponderable 
 particles. A calorie being the unity of measure in changes of 
 heat, we must distinguish the calories of temperature from 
 those of dilatation, the one being in inverse ratio to the 
 other. Our explanation of this point is that the calories of 
 dilatation must be directly proportional to the quantity or 
 
 ! 
 
 
* 
 
 *» SPECIAL PHYSrOLOGY. 
 
 resistance of corpuscular matter, while the calories of tempera- 
 ture are in inverse proportion to the expansive freedom of 
 progene, which is contrary to the degree of molecular reclu- 
 sion. The greater the continuous particles of a substance the 
 greater thermic energy is necessary to separate them. For this 
 reason hydrocules or liquid particles need more calories of 
 dilatation to separate them than gaseous particles do, and still 
 more are necessary for solids than for liquids. Calorific 
 necessity or capacity of a body in a gaseous state is half that 
 of the same body in a liquid state ; and from this we derive the 
 logical supposition that hydrocules are formed by the union 
 of two molecules. 
 
 We constantly observe in the world transferences of molar 
 movement into heat, and the reverse. We know that the 
 mechanical equivalent of a calorie is 425 kilogrameters ; but 
 this cipher of equivalence is not found in practice, because 
 the best inorganic machine cannot produce with one calorie 
 425 kilogrameters of living force, nor can we produce with 
 425 kilogrameters one calorie-only 54% of a calorie ; there- 
 fore the phrase " mechanical equivalent of heat » does not 
 take into account the dissipation of manifested energy, which 
 IS compensated in the universal system by organic genera- 
 tion. In spite of this, physicists pretend that all the quantity 
 of heat which disappears in a machine is transformed into 
 work If, as they say, the temperature is measured starting from 
 the imaginary absolute zero. But the imaginary absolute zero 
 cannot be more than nothing, and nothing cannot be a 
 standard for anything. 
 
 Chemical Theory.-V^^ shall see in Biology (Part Third) that 
 organisms acquire their living or manifested force by molecular 
 collocation or chemical arrangement, as vitality in the acts of 
 organic generation primarily cause progenic currents whose 
 
 CHEMICAL THEORY. 
 
 63 
 
 primordial manifestations are the chemical changes in the for- 
 mation of organic structures. Accordingly, chemical reactions 
 are the primordial manifestations of the change effected 
 in progene by the Original Potence of Nature. But in any 
 chemical metamorphosis there is a variation in the molecular 
 extension, a correlative change in intermolecular distances 
 being then inevitable \ therefore all chemical reaction must be 
 accompanied by some change of temperature, and from this 
 results the constant association of the two different kinds of 
 molecular phenomena in the metamorphosis of matter; in 
 this lies the reason of Thermo-Chemistry. Furthermore, in 
 a chemical metamorphosis the same thermic change always 
 takes place, and the quantity of heat expended or absorbed 
 is different in every combination. The affirmation of this 
 fact is the fundamental law of Thermo-Chemistry. 
 
 Any molecular change is a mechanical work resulting from 
 the interference of progenic actions with atomic matter, 
 progenic energy being decomposed into centripetal energy 
 or gravity and centrifugal energy or the force of heat, which 
 we shall call thermity. These antagonistic resultants are the 
 enigmatic forces called by physicists attraction and repulsion. 
 The final effect of a chemical metamorphosis is a real change 
 in molecular extension, to produce which molecular trans- 
 lations by means of currents of progene are necessary, and 
 the direction and intensity of such currents result from the 
 antagonistic action between these two forces which we have 
 called gravity and thermity. 
 
 The so-called laws of Chemistry are empirical assertions of 
 generalised facts. If such laws are true, they must be sub- 
 ordinated to the principle of conservation instead of being 
 explained by such enigmatic suppositions as the existence of 
 atoms of different nature and their endowment with different 
 
il 
 
 «l 
 
 *♦ SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 2«r "1^".'"^"^^'^'^ ^'-'-^ f-- called by che„,ists 
 affimty. To give a true interpreUtion to chemical laws we 
 must recognise substantial unity or equality in the nature of 
 atoms setting aside all abstract or causing forces 
 
 Experience has principally determined the relations of weights 
 m which bodies form their compounds, the relation of gases 
 .n the.r combinations, and the relation of heat in these com- 
 bmafons, by means of eight laws known by the following 
 denommafons : ,st, Conservation of weights ; 2nd, Definite 
 proportions ; 3rd, Multiple proportions; 4th, Volumetric 
 proportions ; 5th, Proportion of specific heat ; 6th, Equivalence 
 of heat m chemical changes; 7th, Molecular work; and 
 8th Maximum work. The three first-mentioned laws mark 
 ponderable relations, the fourth volumetric, and the other 
 four thermic or calorific relations. 
 
 The atomic determinations of Chemics in the weight as 
 much as in the volume of atoms are completely erroneous 
 because the laws in reference express only dynamic reCs' 
 among the components of a chemical combination, and not 
 fixed properties of atoms. 
 
 The force of affinity-so calling the resultant of the actions 
 which produce a chemical change-is not a primordial or 
 engendered energy, nor is it an abstract causing force ; it is 
 onlythe measure of the concrete movements of the constituents 
 of bodies ; these movements are produced by the proximate 
 mfluence of more or less condensed currents of progene, 
 which must follow the direction of the resultant of the two 
 
 orTeZty.'"""""' "'""'' " ^^''''' ''"' "^^ '"'""^ 
 
 Of these progenic powers we need only practically consider 
 
 thermity. omitting gravity in chemical calculations, because it 
 
 .s an invariable datum if the experiments are always performed 
 
 CHEMICAL THEORY. 
 
 65 
 
 in the same place, or if the laboratories are under the same 
 action of gravity. Chemical changes are therefore correlative 
 with thermic variations ; and from this it results that heat is 
 the best standard for fixing atomic differences, and is the best 
 measure of the metamorphoses of chemical affinity so called. 
 Finally, in this is based the substitution of the secular or 
 atomic Chemistry by the new Thermo-Chemistry. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 PROGENIC PHYSICS IN GENERAL. 
 
 (Determination of progenic movements.) 
 
 If the changes of ponderable matter are derived from those 
 of imponderable, a classification of all forms of physical activity 
 must be inferred from the different forms of progenic move- 
 ments, though these are only known by imagination. We 
 admit and recognise two fundamental states in progene, one 
 phenomenal and the other potential ; the first is manifested 
 to us by the direct action of progene on our mediate senses, 
 sight and hearing, and the second is only known by means 
 of its transferences into determined changes of ponderable 
 matter, or into progenic phenomena, as light and sound. 
 Progenic phenomena result from the propagation of movement 
 across progene alone ; and the effects of the transference of 
 potential movements into manifested changes, both of ponder- 
 able and imponderable matter, become the proximate cause 
 of all phenomena in nature. When the movements of progene 
 are transferred into a limited portion of ponderable matter, the 
 result may be either a total movement of bodies (change of 
 place), or only a partial movement of the constituent particles ; 
 
 iM< 
 
 >*■;- 
 
66 
 
 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 FM 
 
 m the latter case the change of molecular disposition may be 
 in mtermolecular distances (heat), or in molecular extension 
 (chemical change)-the second comprehending the first, as 
 we have just now seen in the theory of Chemistry. If ponder- 
 able matter is infiltrated with progene in all its interstitial 
 spaces, when a body moves both constituents, ponderable 
 and imponderable matter, are necessarily in movement 
 Accordingly, molar and molecular movement cannot exist 
 independent of similar or correlative progenic movements 
 -that ,s to say, a translatory movement of a body supposes 
 not only the translation of ponderable matter, but that of 
 progene also, and the visible vibration of a musical instrument 
 must be accompanied by progenic oscillation. Thus the mo- 
 lecular movement of dilatation (heat) implies the oscillation of 
 interstitial progene, which increases in amplitude in proportion 
 to the molecular separation. Thus also the translatory move- 
 ment of molecules in chemical metamorphoses needs the 
 translation of progene, and in the same manner any oscillatory 
 movement of liquids or gases, or any vibratory movement of 
 sohds, ,s accompanied by the oscillatory movement of progene 
 The determination of the form of invisible movements of 
 matter ,s made by the rational eye of the mind, which com- 
 prehends and discovers two kinds of movements in progene 
 (as among visible movements)-one return or oscillatory, and 
 the other transposed or translatory. 
 
 At present most authors do not generally admit the trans- 
 position of imponderable ether (progene): they think it does 
 not pass from the sun to the earth, that it does not pass 
 hrough the wire to produce the action of dynamic electricity, 
 that m the electric spark and in the lightning there is no 
 change of place; and they say that light and electricity are 
 propagated only by oscillatory movement. Such a hypothesis 
 
 PROGENIC PHYSICS IN GENERAL. 
 
 67 
 
 is defective, as it does not well explain the facts, and it is a 
 contradiction to the motions of Molar Mechanics, from which 
 we must acquire the possible knowledge of invisible movements. 
 Reason induces us to admit as a scientific necessity that 
 which is a necessity in the function of the universe — that is, 
 that progene must move in both ways, in progression or 
 translatory movement, and in oscillatory movement or to and 
 fro. The progressive movement— course of the progene— 
 must exist in order to determine the change of position of 
 molecules so as to produce chemical phenomena, and thus 
 also to determine the movements of great masses which now 
 appear to us as effects of attraction under the phenomenal forms 
 of terrestrial magnetism and universal gravitation. 
 
 To comprehend what must be the course of progene, we 
 
 must notice the extraordinary difference which exists between 
 
 the movements of small bodies running a great distance and 
 
 those of great masses when they move in an extension much 
 
 smaller than their size. Thus, for instance, a ball shot from 
 
 a gun seems to reach gradually and totally to the end of its 
 
 course, while if a long bar be impelled at one end (for a 
 
 short distance only) there appears to our observation to be an 
 
 indirect, instantaneous and partial movement at the other 
 
 end of the bar. Like this last, great quantities of fluids, as 
 
 the waves of the ocean, the winds, and, above all, currents 
 
 of progene, are always removed in a very limited space 
 
 in comparison with the great quantity of matter set in motion. 
 
 When a perfect fluid or meta-fluid like progene, which we 
 
 suppose exists alone beyond the atmosphere in interstellar 
 
 space, receives an impulse from one star, that impulse will be 
 
 instantaneously transmitted to the others, no matter at what 
 
 distance, without losing any of its initial velocity, because the 
 
 intermediary substance is imponderable, and it may be said 
 
68 
 
 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 PROGENIC PHYSICS IN GENERAL, 
 
 69 
 
 II 
 
 incompressible. Such a movement is not an oscillation, but 
 an instantaneous translation or progression, and consequently 
 the measures of velocity which have been determined in 
 progenic movements, as in the transmission of sensual radiations 
 of light and in the latent currents of electricity, represent the 
 effect of the resistance of ponderable matter to the progene in 
 movement. 
 
 AV'hen progene is alone in interstellar space it can only follow 
 a diffuse course, as there are no isolating means which could 
 determine its condensation at any point. In order that 
 progene may be condensed or rarefied it must be confined in 
 some body— that is, it must be limited by molecular or 
 ponderable walls; by itself alone progene cannot be the con- 
 tainer and the contained, in the same manner as water cannot 
 be a receptacle for water. For a similar reason progene 
 cannot be set in oscillation when it is alone. In the space 
 beyond molecular existence there can be no other change of 
 place than the diffuse irradiations of heat and light, which pro- 
 duce thermic and photothermic propagations, and which must 
 be equal in their velocity to the infinitely short time that a 
 progenic emission lasts, because progene, we repeat, must in- 
 stantaneously transmit any impulse to all interstellar distances. 
 We must now explain a point which at first sight may seem 
 a little confused. If sound, light, radiating heat and electricity 
 —or, to be more explicit, if sonorous propagation, luminous 
 diffusion, thermic radiation and electric conduction— are all 
 progenic movements, why are they so different in their manifes- 
 tations ? Because their essential difference is only subjective, 
 —it is an effect of perception which exclusively depends upon 
 the organisation of our senses and on the receptivity of our 
 mental power; the most insignificant quantitative relations 
 produce different classes of sensations, and from this arises 
 
 the iiuntal distinction of qualities. We do not know material 
 changes by irreflexive experience, for we do not perceive them 
 as they are in themselves, but as they impress our system ; 
 the appreciation of phenomena as they are is under the 
 exclusive jurisdiction of reason, and their possible determina- 
 tion is purely mathematic or quantitative, which, in a final 
 analysis, supposes only relation either of space or time, or else 
 a mixed relation of both space and time. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 PROGENIC PHENOMENA : SOUND AND LIGHT. 
 
 Theory of Sound, — The propagation of the oscillatory move- 
 ment of progene claims our special attention. According to 
 the secular hypothesis admitted by physicists, sound is con- 
 sidered as an effect of air-waves or vibrations of the molecules 
 which constitute the ponderable components of the atmosphere. 
 We must set aside the grotesque hypothesis according to which 
 sound is supposed to be transmitted by air-waves, as it cannot 
 withstand the most insignificant commentary ; and if we, like 
 the generality of authors, should erroneously suppose that 
 sonorous motion is a molecular vibration— that is, a movement 
 of the ponderable particles of air, or of any other body that 
 transmits sound— we should then see that sound and heat, 
 as explained in the so-called mechanical theory, would be 
 the same thing, and therefore sound would need for its 
 transmission as much force in mechanical equivalents as is 
 necessary for the production and conduction of heat. But 
 without the necessity of appealing to the exact calculation of 
 numbers, it is clear to our reason, at a glance, that such a con- 
 clusion is very far removed from the facts of observation ; and 
 
 M 
 
\S 
 
 III 
 
 70 
 
 SPEC/A L PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 th.s ,s still more clearly seen when the transmission of sounds 
 ■s through solid bodies. There is no proportion between the 
 molar force employed in a sonorous instrument and that which 
 would be necessary to move the molecules if ponderable matter 
 were the transmitter of sound to a great distance 
 
 Sound IS propagated, not by molecular vibration, but hy 
 prosen,c o.Hllation-or, in other words, it is transmitted by a 
 succession of oscillations of progene. This is, then, a kind of 
 tremulous movement, or a movement to and fro. When a body 
 produces sound its particles are in a tremulous or vibratory 
 movement, which impels the progene, with which they are in 
 contact, to and fro, so that every vibration of sonorous bodies 
 produces a progenic oscillation of the same amplitude, thus 
 causing a very minute current of progene to ebb and flow • 
 and such oscillations must be repeated a determined number 
 of times in a second .in order to be capable of impressing our 
 car by producing sonorous sensation. The limits of such 
 repetitions, called periods, are about eight in a second as the 
 minimum, and forty thousand as the maximum. 
 
 Such a movement is impossible in progene existing alone 
 because in that state any impulse is equally propagated in all 
 directions without in the slightest degree breaking the uniformity 
 of the tension : for this reason sound cannot be propagated 
 without ponderable matter, through a space in which there 
 •s only progene, as in the void bell of a pneumatic machine. 
 
 We must now give a slight idea of the character of 
 sound. All the differences among sounds are quantitative, 
 therefore it is very improper to consider as the quality of 
 sound that peculiar character common to all sounds produced 
 by the same instrument, and by which we distinguish one 
 mstrument from another. Besides this, when sound is 
 transmitted through a fluid like air or water, only two of its 
 
 THEORY OF SOUND. 
 
 71 
 
 characters can be propagated : one is the intensity or amplitude 
 of the oscillations, and the other the rapidity in the succession 
 which characterises sound by its pitch. Accordingly all 
 characters of sound must depend on algebraic relations and 
 not on different geometric forms, by which authors pretend 
 to explain the difference which they improperly call quality. 
 Although different forms of vibration are appreciated in 
 sonorous instruments, progene, like any fluid, cannot oscillate 
 except in a straight line, and therefore this so-called quality 
 of sound depends not on the form of oscillation, but on the 
 synthetic relation of height and intensity among all the oscilla- 
 tions which form and propagate a sound. For this character 
 we will substitute the name quality by the more proper one of 
 STRUER, a word derived from the Latin struere, which 
 means to unite, to put together, to pile up, to place in order, 
 to construct ; it being at the same time the root of the words 
 instrument and structure. The word Struer truly comprehends 
 and represents what it etymologically signifies, as the character 
 we call Struer is not only a synthetic result from the union 
 of elemental oscillations of different degrees of rapidity and 
 intensity, but these conditions depend on the structure of 
 sonorous instruments. 
 
 There are four of its characters— factors of movement— of 
 sound, which for a clear distinction we arrange in the following 
 table : — 
 
 Analytic character fr» -r. 1 v 
 
 of the J *^'^P'^^'^y "r celerity 
 
 strongest oscillations [Amplitude and rapidity 
 
 Synthetic^character j pj^^^ ^^^ j^^^^^j^^ ^ 
 all osculations (Time of the sensation . 
 
 Pitch. 
 Inten.sity. 
 
 Stru r. 
 Duratitm. 
 
 What has here been said confirms the statement that sound 
 does not belong to Molar Mechanics; in future it must be 
 
*V; 
 
 I 
 
 III 
 
 7* 
 
 SPEC/AL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 included in the department we call ProRenic Phv^ir. u,k 
 we .^clude l.,ht. electncity. and. withThr itf tl; oZ 
 potential changes of progene. 
 
 Thf Zf ^'^''~''''''" "'^ '^ ""'^^ ^°"'"^'^''^ o' coloured 
 when h "" '""' °' P'°«^"^ P'°^-- -■°->ess light 
 Tav fl '"'■''''"" '^ "^'^' °' -"P'«ely uniform, fhe 
 ^s ollowng a recflinear direction from the incande cent 
 body to our eyes; such a rectilinear direction can be broken 
 by some refracting body, but the incident and emergent tvs 
 always continue parallel. The sensation called white cluri 
 produced when rays of light are reflected by a Ly in a„ 
 incomplete or defective manner-that is, when part of the Lht 
 .3 refracted or absorbed, yet follows a parallel course untHi 
 reaches the eye. From this arises the analogy betw en "hi e 
 
 P o Jn ° ■ "f ' '""^ '"'■"« ■•"<^'-™A called Jh? 
 
 Progene, losmg this parallelism, follows an oblique course td 
 propagates the emissions which compose a number of .; "of 
 ■ght wuh d,fferent amplitudes and rapidity; and from this 
 complexity .s produced one, many, or all the colours of the 
 
 s r^.: " --''-'' '"-■- — •- 'Hat'of": 
 
 The results from experiments with coloured light have been 
 erroneously considered by authors as facts belonging to Z 
 «ost simple light. It is evident that without lighf we inno 
 
 cTT 'IT' '"' '"^ '■"^^"'^ P-P<'-'- i' ot tr^ a 
 CO ouriess hght. like the sunshine, is seen directly by the Ve 
 
 s?n^hr:h'° T " ^'"'^ '° "'"^'-' '-s;'co'lou Ta 
 
 orStd ;;ogtireSrr°~ ^-"'- 
 
 -havesom^I^J—r^i^rri; 
 
 THEORY OF LIGHT. 
 
 73 
 
 its perception it is also pretty similar to sound, because the 
 organ of sight is a mediate sense, like the organ of hearing. 
 Nevertheless, light and sound differ in the form and velocity 
 of their movement. The velocity of light across the atmo- 
 sphere is so great, that it is almost incomparable with that of 
 sound ; but the difference between them is yet more remark- 
 able when we compare the two progenic phenomena by their 
 modes of propagation. Sound can be heard even if we have 
 no more than one ear and this is in a direction contrary to the 
 position of the sonorous body, and it can also be heard even 
 if a great obstacle be interposed between that sonorous body 
 and the ear ; while light does not retrocede in its progressive 
 transmission (if there be no reflection), — it always continues 
 forward in a rectilinear direction between the luminous object 
 and the eye, and we cannot see the luminous point when an 
 obstacle is interposed between it and our sense of sight. This 
 fact is sufficient to condemn the hypothesis of luminous undu- 
 lations or oscillations ; but we must be careful not to confound 
 the theory here given with that of Newton, called " hypothesis 
 of emissions," because we do not admit the transmission of 
 light by particles : we repeat that emissions of light are minute 
 impulses of progene following a very rapid course. 
 
 Those who explain light by the transversal waving of ether 
 compare this motion to ripples in water, or to the waving 
 movement of a long cord, or else to the vibrations of metallic 
 plates ; but in any of these cases we clearly see the cause of 
 the undulating movement, because it is accomplished in the 
 direction of the least resistance, which is contrary to what 
 must occur with progene, where, on account of its homo- 
 geneity, the resistance must be equal in all parts, and therefore 
 cannot form transversal waves. 
 
 Huyghens' geometric refutation of the fact that the pro- 
 
74 
 
 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 pagation of light does not extend in all directions, though 
 showing great mathematical ability, is not sufficient to save 
 his hypothesis from condemnation ; for if the resolution of 
 such a theorem were a truth, it should also be applicable to 
 the theory of sound, and this would be evidently contra- 
 dictory to facts. Moreover, it leaves the principal question 
 without resolution, which is, why the eye, even if placed within 
 the cone of luminous propagation, when the pupil is not in 
 the direction of the light, does not receive its rays, and of 
 course cannot see the objective point of their emission. 
 
 The hypothesis of undulations sustains another error when 
 it asserts that white light is of complex constitution, being 
 formed of all the colours of the spectrum. The dispersion 
 of white light into different colours by the prism is not a 
 division or separation of the component elements, as authors 
 state. We cannot explain such a phenomenon by differences 
 among the supposed pre-existing colours in the white rays, 
 as this would imply different velocities in such coloured rays, 
 across a refracting means, which is disproved by facts from 
 the direct observation of light, and from the comparative 
 observation of sonorous transmission. Effectually the velocity 
 of propagation of light and sound across a means depends 
 on the conditions of such a means alone, and not on the 
 character of the movements propagated. Besides, the laws 
 of refraction themselves are contradictory to Newton's explana- 
 tion of the spectrum, because it is incomprehensible that rays 
 of the same colour, incident in different points of the prism, 
 concur at the same place through the effect of their refraction, 
 after light suffers such a supposed decomposition. In oppo- 
 sition to Newton's assertion, we must settle as a fact that the 
 prism converts white or colourless light into coloured by 
 changing the rapidity and amplitude of die different rays of 
 
 THEORY OF LIGHT, 
 
 75 
 
 a progenic emission through the refracting medium, the length 
 of the emissions varying according as the rays are more or 
 less separated from their parallel direction. We perceive white 
 light when the rays of one emission are all equal in the 
 amplitude and celerity of the succession of progenic impulses ; 
 while, on the contrary, coloured light results when the rays 
 simultaneously perceived from the same point differ in the 
 amplitude and celerity of the succession of progenic emissions. 
 It may also occur that though coloured rays are mixed with 
 white in one emission, we perceive only the latter, because 
 their intensity conceals the impression of the coloured rays; 
 as in a simple tone we perceive only the prime-partial, because 
 the upper-partials are feeble. White light, then, corresponds 
 to the simple tone of the tuning-fork, while coloured lights 
 correspond to the complex musical tones which are formed 
 by the aggregation of partials differing in amplitude and 
 celerity. In this parallel of sound and light we see that 
 the colour of light is in correlation with the struer of sounds, 
 so coloured rays of light are distinguished by the different 
 length (amplitude and celerity) of their emissions, decreasing 
 from red to violet, but being greatest in the invisible infra-red, 
 which are the strongest in their thermic potence. 
 
 The study of light offers some considerations which make 
 the concept of progene clearer and more precise. According 
 to the progenic theory elasticity rightly has no play in lumi- 
 nous propagation ; moreover, in opposition to what has been 
 generally said in regard to imponderable ether, progene being 
 a uniform means, cannot be elastic, in the same manner as 
 its density cannot pass from zero. Progene is certainly inert, 
 like ponderable matter in mechanism ; but we must not con- 
 found inertia with gravity, as do the mechanicians, although 
 gravity is the force by which they measure what they call 
 
76 
 
 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 molar inertia. Progene, therefore, presupposes a principle 
 of movement exterior to itself; activity or energy cannot be 
 inherent to progene, in the same manner as it cannot be 
 inherent to atoms. Molecular changes also have given us 
 evident proofs for the confirmation of the inertia of progene, 
 which plays such an important part in those phenomena- 
 and these do not leave any doubt of their comprehension 
 within the law of the principle of the conservation of energy 
 and the relative value of progenic transferences. 
 
 Luminous movements or progenic emissions perceptible to 
 the eye are partially or totally extinguished when progene 
 collides with a body, because the emission may be transferred 
 into heat ; in this case the propagation changes the form of 
 movement, and instead of progressive translation we have 
 an oscillating whirlpool. The quantity of light that disappears 
 is proportional to the quantity of heat produced; and for 
 this reason black bodies, and in general those whose reflective 
 power is very feeble, are very easily heated. Besides the 
 transference of light into heat. Nature offers us the oppor- 
 tunity of observing its transference into affinity, or better to 
 say, chemical change, and reason has discovered the important 
 fact of the conversion of progenic irradiation into the different 
 actions which are classed under the name of gravitation, 
 especially the transference of interstellar movement into' 
 terrestrial gravity. 
 
 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 77 
 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PROGENIC POTENXE: potential -=' PHYSICS. 
 
 (Electricity and Potential Heat.) 
 
 The departments of Special Physiology could be classified 
 into two groups— one Phenomenology, and the other Potential 
 Physics ; studying in the former the phenomenal changes which 
 are manifest in their antecedents and consequents, and in the 
 latter the potential changes, whether latent in both terms of 
 the change, like pure electricity, or in only one term, the other 
 term being manifest, like electric transference. Thus, then, the 
 study of electric changes has two parts : one which occupies 
 itself with pure or potential electricity— that is, the study of 
 the propagation of the potential changes of progene without 
 transference ; and the other which studies electric transferences 
 —that is, all kinds of manifestations springing from such 
 
 potentiality. 
 
 The varieties of phenomena ordinarily called electrics are 
 not the same as electricity ; they are its modes of manifest 
 transference into one of the phenomena already known as 
 molar movements, thermic and chemical phenomena, and 
 sound and light. Electricity properly so called is only under 
 the jurisdiction of reason ; it is not a change directly recognised 
 by the senses. The transmission of electricity to our nerves 
 after its transference into nervous action does not produce 
 any sensation of a special character ; but if the electric current 
 
 * We must bear in mind ihat the word potential is always applied to 
 change not manifest to the senses, so that it is contrary in its meaning to 
 that which is phenomi nal, and presupposes activity in matter, or movement. 
 
78 
 
 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 is propagated through all the nerves it may produce all kinds 
 of sensations, and it may even be transferred into a motor 
 current producing muscular contractions. Moreover, the same 
 sensations as those arising from electric transference may also 
 be excited by molar, molecular and progenic phenomena. 
 This mduces us to recognise great analogy between nervous 
 and electric currents. 
 
 There are two electric states of progenic potentiality-one of 
 tension, called Static Electricity, and the other of current called 
 Dynamic Electricity. But to the static state of progene belongs 
 latent heat as well as electricity ; such latent heat is a change 
 m the energy of interstitial progene without any variation in 
 the amplitude of the progenic parcels. To the dynamic state 
 corresponds also radiating heat or thermic radiation Never- 
 theless we do not here take into consideration thermic potence 
 either m its static or its dynamic state, because its principles are 
 derived from the knowledge of electric and phenomenal states. 
 In order to make a clearer distinction, we classify the potential 
 forms in the following table. 
 
 THEOR Y OF ELECTRICITY. 
 
 79 
 
 Static states : 
 Tension. 
 
 Latent heat 
 Static electricity . 
 
 Dynamic states .-/Dynamic electricity 
 Propagation. Urradiating heat 
 
 oscillation of interstitial progene. 
 conduction and rarefaction in the 
 
 periphery, 
 confirmed current of progene. 
 diffusion of progene. 
 
 Light, radiating heat and dynamic electricity, then, are 
 translatory movements without any greater difference among 
 them than in the form of progression. Radiating heat and 
 hght, wh.ch are equal in the direction of propagation, differ in 
 the ampHtude and celerity of progenic emissions ; electricity 
 differs from both in the direction of movement, Ix^cause they 
 are propagated by radiation (spheroidal form), while electricity 
 IS propagated by conduction according to the form of the 
 conductor. There is opposition between light and electricity 
 
 also in their property of propagation across bodies, this 
 depending on the fact that the former is a diffuse movement 
 and the latter one of condensation. 
 
 In the Theory of Electricity we accept the ideas of P. Secchi, 
 and consider with him that positive electricity depends on an 
 excess of progene and negative electricity on a deficiency of the 
 same fluid ; considering an electric battery as a machine which 
 condenses the progene at one point, leaving another in rare- 
 faction, so establishing the current called dynamic electricity 
 from the first point to the second ; on this depends the positive 
 and negative poles of the battery. 
 
 Although electricity acts in two very different modes — 
 tension and current — both when transferred into visible 
 movement are manifested by apparent attractions and re- 
 pulsions, but they differ from one another in the duration 
 of their eff'ects, as the phenomena resulting from the trans- 
 ference of electric tension are instantaneous, while those from 
 electric currents are continued. The two modes are correlative, 
 and the forms of movement of the two states can be inter- 
 changed ; from this electricians have already inferred that the 
 substance in action was only one, though of different forms 
 of movement, each manifested by a series of phenomena which 
 differed in the appearance alone. Nevertheless, the dynamic 
 conditions are not quite the same in these two modes, as in 
 that of tension (static electricity) there is equilibrium, while in 
 the electric current the equilibrium constantly fails between 
 the two extremes of the conductor, this being the cause of the 
 transmission of the potence between its generator, which is 
 ordinarily chemic, to the point in which electricity is transferred 
 into any phenomena whatever. 
 
 Electricity is capable of disturbing the position and molecular 
 condition of bodies, and from this arises those mechanical 
 

 80 
 
 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 THEORY OF ELECTRICITY. 
 
 81 
 
 effects called magnetism and calorific and chemical effects 
 It can also be transferred into sonorous and luminous pro^ 
 pagation. Some authors, wrongly interpreting these effects 
 have formed an incorrect concept of electricity. To condemn 
 this erroneous idea, and to convince ourselves that the electric 
 current is a true progressive movement of progene running 
 through the conductors, we must repeat a reflection already 
 made m progenic phenomena in regard to the defective 
 hypothesis of the propagation of movement by means of 
 ponderable matter alone. A superficial examination of facts 
 has mduced some scientists to form such a supposition, because 
 .n sound as well as in light, and even in electricity, movements 
 of ponderable matter are observed near the points of their 
 production; but these movements are only propagated to a 
 short distance in proportion to the course which has to be 
 traversed in such changes, otherwise a complete contradiction 
 would result to the fundamental law of mechanism, which 
 IS the prmcple of conservation with its corollary inertia of 
 matter. 
 
 Closely studying the act of production of electricity in the 
 battery, and seeing the molecular transportations produced in 
 chemical reactions, we cannot do less than compare chemic 
 to magnetic phenomena, and establish a great analogy between 
 them,-with this difference alone, that a chemical metamorphosis 
 IS like a molecular magnetism. Thermo-electric currents 
 show us that in the propagation of heat by conduction the 
 phenomenon is double, as there is not only the oscillatory 
 propagation which produces molecular expansion, but there 
 IS also a flow of progene in the direction of the propagation • 
 this IS the origin of dynamic electricity produced by heat' 
 The same reflection is applicable to all chemical metamorphoses* 
 and for this reason we have asserted its similarity with magnetic' 
 
 action. Any lack of equilibrium in progenic tensions gives 
 rise to movements which appear to produce attractions and 
 repulsions ; therefore such movements do not represent causing 
 forces, but forces resulting from different pressures of progene. 
 The tendency which appears in nature to approximate bodies 
 and particles to one another — that is, universal attraction so- 
 called — proceeds from progenic movements which constantly 
 exist. Let us suppose, for instance, two bodies in proximity, 
 and with different progenic tensions, separated by a movable 
 means like the air : a current of progene will be determined 
 flowing towards the body in rarefaction from the air, and this 
 means being then rarefied will cause a flow of progene from 
 the body which is in condensation, the progenic current 
 moving the body along with it if its gravitating resistance is 
 overcome until it comes in contact with the rarefied body. 
 It may also happen that the current of progene from a body 
 in condensation carries along with it the bodies which are 
 in its path, so determining movements having the appearance 
 of repulsion ; this will be more manifest between two bodies 
 if both are rarefied or are overcharged with progene. 
 
 The empirical laws of electric currents and those of hydro- 
 dynamics are correlative j we observe in electricity the same 
 characteristic properties as in liquids, such as the effects of 
 tension produced by water through tubes, which are the same 
 as the electric phenomena called induction. When the course 
 of progene is interrupted, the same thing happens as when an 
 interruption occurs in water running through a tube ; in both 
 cases a pressure is produced which is called static tension 
 in the progene, either positive or negative according as it is 
 condensed or rarefied. 
 
 The so-called phenomena of induction, by which the analogy 
 between the two complementary modes of electricity (tension 
 
 6 
 
S2 
 
 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 and current) is principally recognised, are yet incorrectly con- 
 sidered as the effect of a peculiar property in bodies. So 
 physicists define induction by saying that it is a peculiar 
 property of bodies having electric, galvanic or magnetic 
 polarity, which can produce the same power in other bodies 
 without direct contact. Induction, then, they consider as polar 
 forces acting in pairs with opposite tendencies of properties 
 in two primordial imaginary elements. But the word induction 
 should not be applied either to electric or magnetic results, 
 because that would imply the idea that there are phenomena 
 which may be produced by distant influence without the 
 intervention of any impulsive means ; it must be reserved for 
 the elaborating process of synthetic thought which produces 
 ideas of generalisation. 
 
 It is not within the limit of this book to go into details 
 about the variety of every class of natural mutations, because 
 in order to do so we should have to make simple deductions 
 from the general or comprehensive theory here sustained, 
 whose complement will be treated of in the next parts—' 
 Biology and Cosmology. 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF ABSTRACT BIOLOGY, 
 
 CHAP. XIX. Concept and Division of Synthetic Physiology. 
 XX. Principles of Descriptive Biology : Micrography. 
 XXI. Principles of Genesic Biology : Microgeny. 
 
 >> 
 
 n 
 
PART THIRD. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF ABSTRACT BIOLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 CONCEPT AND DIVISION OF SYNTHETIC PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 Synthetic Physiology comprehends Biology and Cosmology. 
 Biology must be limited to physiological concepts, not including 
 the knowledge about the origin and end of things, or mental 
 activity ; for Physiology must treat only of knowledge acquired 
 by sensual data,— it must not comprehend the totality of 
 the Universal System, but only the mechanical world whose 
 synthesis is produced in and by living bodies. 
 
 Biology may be either abstract or concrete. Abstract 
 Biology studies the changes of vitality without reference to 
 any being in particular, but comprehending the generalities 
 inferred from all living beings ; while Concrete Biology studies 
 the differences between organic individualities, first establishing 
 the division into vegetable and animal kingdoms, and sub- 
 dividing these into classes and species— that is to say, classifying 
 organic bodies in order to study them in particular. In this 
 work we only make reference to Abstract Biology. 
 
 Synthetic Physiology is circumscribed to the combined 
 study of all objective changes (things of external sensation) ; 
 
M^ik- 
 
 86 
 
 BIOLOGY, 
 
 but that synthesis may l)e either total or partial, the first 
 comprehending the whole Cosmos- Cosmology, and the second 
 a hvmg mdividual only, in which take place the changes of the 
 whole material world in miniature-Microcosmos : this is the 
 object of Biology. Physiological Synthesis consists, then, in a 
 functional concurrence in which all phenomena are mechanical 
 effects or variations arising from movement, because the vital 
 functions are no more than inorganic changes acting in perfect 
 ^ncert in every organism, as they do in the Cosmic System. 
 Accordingly, Synthetic Physiology tries to compass the combined 
 study of the changes of Nature, comprehending the synthesis 
 
 Analytic Physiology, and producing by vitality their co-operation 
 
 in a living individual and in Cosmos. 
 
 Completely separating Physiology- from Metaphysics, physio- 
 
 ogists are circumscribed to the study of material effects, to 
 
 he exclusion of mental ones, and still more to the exclusion of 
 the Generating Cause,-that is, Physiology does not include 
 any other causes, not even in the concept of vitality, than 
 those that are proximate up to the immediate antecedents of 
 manifested changes in the organic functions. It is clear that 
 m this sense we may say that the object of Physiology is 
 
 buTtheT T*''. '"^ ^'' ""' '^^^ '"^"^^ - '^ 4 all 
 but the physiologic; on the contrary, we must admit a True 
 
 Cause outside mechanism which must be treated not physically 
 
 but metaphysically. We must also recognise a mental activity 
 
 Tf'^out/"" r''"'"' '^ characteristics being differences 
 of quality, and its power inexplicable by movement. We 
 
 a'nTh" >!'' ?"^ '' ''' ^""'"'^ ^^ ''' -" consciousness, 
 and by the relation of time, without l>eing able to predicate 
 
 of it any phenomenal activity (that is, any change directly 
 
 appreciable by the senses) or any relations of space. Th 
 
 CONCEPT AND DIVISION OF SYNTHETIC PHYSIOLOGY. 87 
 
 objective or material being, on the contrary, has as constant and 
 indispensable characteristics the predicate of extension, implying 
 material substance, and movement, implying relation not only 
 of time but of space. Effectually there is an evident distinction 
 in our consciousness between the material and the mental : 
 the material is inert (according to the principle of conserva- 
 tion), and is known by the relations or predicates of 
 quantity ; the mental is active, and is known by the attribu- 
 tions or predicates of quality. In the former the ante- 
 cedents and consequents are equivalent— there is no creation 
 of anything (inertia of matter),— while in the latter the general 
 conclusions are not equivalent to their antecedents, as they 
 comprehend the universal, that is, all cases of the same kind, 
 though they cannot be brought under our observation more 
 than in a limited number, inductive thought then creating 
 some ideas. In material differences there is mathematical 
 reason, as changes of matter are propagations of movement 
 expressed by quantitative differences or relations of space and 
 time, connoting identity of attribution— that is, substantial 
 identity and identity of activity (motion); but in mental 
 difference there is no more reason than the states of con- 
 sciousness, and the changes of the mind consist in qualitative 
 differences inexplicable by movement, as in them we cannot 
 express relations of space, and besides, they imply differences 
 in substance and activity which cannot be known in regard 
 to propagation of movement. 
 
 Hence, universal effects are of two kinds, spiritual and 
 material ; the spiritual are the subject of direct perception, 
 and the material are the objects perceived not directly, but by 
 the interactions of the senses, both with the external world 
 and the mind ; but the Primordial Cause of all effects in the 
 universal system is one alone, which is neither subject nor 
 

 %% 
 
 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Object of perception in our mind,-but is truly the Creator and 
 Generator of all we perceive. Nevertheless the existence of 
 God, Mmd,and Matter are inconceivable as really independent 
 of or separate from one another-that is to say, our under- 
 standing can only hold the ideal abstraction or nominal 
 independence of any of the said entities. We cannot truly 
 comprehend a real being which could be cause without effect 
 or mental subject without material object, or vice versa ' 
 comprehending, of course, in this concept of universal depend' 
 ence the mechanism of life as well as that of the whole 
 Cosmos. For this reason the traditional truth of Christian 
 revelation of the separate existence of God, Soul, and Body 
 IS and always will be a complete mystery, inexplicable by 
 words and impenetrable to the intelligence. The problems 
 belongmg to this transcendental Trinity are beyond the limits 
 of Physiology : they belong to Metaphysics. 
 
 Physiological explanations can never pass from the numerical 
 equivalence of correlation between antecedents and consequents 
 -but this is not to assert that we find tenable the pretended 
 scepticism of those who affirm that there is a complete mental 
 satisfaction of causality by determining in numbers the relations 
 of Cosmic effects. Perhaps this may satisfy some minds, but 
 It cannot satisfy minds privileged with such intellectual develop- 
 ment as to be able to reach the contemplating concept of a 
 Supreme Cause, although this may only be admitted and 
 recognised by the attributions and relations of the created 
 principally by the organic and psychic activity which are 
 multiplied and developed in the Universe. No substantial 
 predicate or relation in space and time can be referred to the 
 Creator, as we cannot have any concept of perfection more 
 than the material and the mental : God is inconceivable, as 
 He cannot be either one or the other, and at the same time 
 
 CONCEPT AND DIVISION OF SYNTHETIC PHYSIOLOGY. 89 
 
 must contain the capacity for both. To the Supreme Intelli- 
 gence, as to any human intelligence different from our own 
 mind, we cannot make reference more than in its activity, 
 and this is revealed to us by the government of the Universal 
 System—/.^., by organic generation. 
 
 The interactions of a living being (as of any object whatever) 
 are of two kinds, intrinsic and extrinsic : in the former the 
 antecedent and consequent of the action are within the 
 individual, they being then intransitive; while in the latter, 
 one of the terms is within the individuality and the other is 
 without, in the cosmic means, such interactions being transitive. 
 The transference of one kind into another is simply by pro- 
 pagation. Intrinsic as well as extrinsic interactions may be 
 either imponderable (progenic), or ponderable (molar and 
 molecular) ; and in the progenic we make the distinction of 
 phenomenal and potential, according as the changes are mani- 
 fested or latent. We always employ the term potential not 
 as the opposite of actual or active, but according to the capacity 
 of our perception or consciousness of propagation; in like 
 manner the term intransitive is also relative in reference to a 
 part of the system which we can imagine separate from the 
 rest only by mental abstraction. 
 
 We must not forget that when progenic activity is directly 
 propagated through interstitial progene, the changes we have 
 called progenic result, which generally produce in bodies 
 expansive actions apparently repulsive (as thermic, sonorous, 
 and luminous propagations) ; and when, on the contrary, progenic 
 action is transferred to ponderable matter, when it collides 
 with bodies, a contracting action results, the effect of molecular 
 and molar changes which appear to be produced by attraction, 
 gravitation (in its different forms, as cohesion and affinity) 
 and magnetism. Thus, then, progenic propagations through 
 
 

 90 
 
 BIOLOGY. 
 
 bodies produce the effect of dispersion among the molecules 
 wh.le the effect of ponderable transference is compressive If 
 these different classes of changes or energies exist in Cosmos 
 m general, and in organism in particular, forming a synthesis 
 any phenomenon whatever, either in Cosmos or in a living 
 bemg, is the result of the antagonistic operations of the forms 
 of progenic propagation with those of transference Thus for 
 mstance, a potential change like progenic transmission (elec- 
 tricity and what physiologists call automatic and nervous 
 action) is a virtual result from the conflict of the potential 
 state of progene with the movements of sound, heat, light 
 cohesion, affinity, gravity, and magnetism. 
 
 Physiological Synthesis cannot have a perfectly developed 
 theory as long as it cannot mathematically explain the changes 
 of propagation and transferences which are combined in 
 vitality. When can this point be reached, which must be the 
 beacon of the physiologists of the future? That we cannot 
 calculate, because a great analytical difficulty is yet to be 
 overcome, which now only allows us to make a very defective 
 study of Physiological Synthesis. The molecular movements 
 of chemical metamorphoses, and progenic movements, are not 
 yet measured either directly or with precision, as are those of 
 the steam-engine ; hence arises the lack of fundamental know- 
 ledge of necessary data to experiment on the transferences of 
 the different forms of energy in Cosmos and in organism. The 
 work IS as yet scarcely begun in physiological analysis, and 
 until the knowledge of Cosmos is analytically complete we 
 cannot take one secure step in its synthesis. Nevertheless 
 experience has begun to prepare the field with what is called 
 Chemical Synthesis. 
 
 Biology must spring from the irreflexive state of actuality 
 surpassing its descriptive limits to investigate rationally the 
 
 CONCEPT AND DIVISION OF SYNTHETIC PHYSIOLOGY. 91 
 
 effected genesis of organism. When it makes this progress, 
 vitality will have the same mechanical explanation of its effects 
 as the phenomena which are combined in it; but we must 
 never confound such explanations with the things themselves, 
 as the result of the process of reasoning is not the same as 
 the genesic order of things ; it is precisely inverse to that : 
 the first effects we discover are those proximate to our senses, 
 and consequently farther removed from the Primordial Cause. 
 This inversion between the logical order of thought and the 
 genesic order of cosmic activity or movement must always be 
 kept in mind in order to avoid falling into the monistic error 
 of evolutionism. The doctrine of primordial genesis — Cosmo- 
 gony — is not physiologic, it is metaphysic. 
 
 All that has been said confirms our assertion that Synthetic 
 Physiology does not study anything new, as the living func- 
 tions are only the syntheses of changes occurring in the 
 organic world ; but because of this we must not arrive at the 
 erroneous conclusion of materialism, which asserts that the 
 vital synthesis results from material activity, when in the true 
 order of succession the changes of the inorganic world are 
 secondarily derived from the activity of living beings. We 
 include the theory of gravitation in Physiological Synthesis, 
 Ixicause it is not a primordial agency, but a result derived 
 from the vital function of organism. We shall explain plane- 
 tary movements, gravity and terrestrial magnetism, by progenic 
 impulsions arising from the difference between the changes in 
 vegetable and animal organisms, and also from the difference 
 in both organic kingdoms during the day and night. 
 
 The field of Synthetic Physiology once determined, we must 
 divide it into its logical departments. Biology and Cosmolog>% 
 Abstract Biology studies individual synthesis in general — that 
 is, the concept of the living element — which, being ordinarily 
 
 
9» 
 
 BIOLOGY. 
 
 in.croscop.c, may be called Mfcrocosmos, in opposition to 
 Macrocosmos, which is the whole world, whose synthesis is 
 the object of Cosmology. We have subdivided Biology and 
 Cosmology into two departments, in order to separate what 
 .s purely descriptive (relations of space) from that which 
 .s genesic (relation of activity in time), the four following 
 departments resulting:- ,st. Abstract descriptive Biology 
 or Micrography; 2nd, Abstract genesic Biology, or Micro^ 
 geny ; 3rd, Cosmography, a general description of the world • 
 and 4th, Cosmogeny, the effected involution of Cosmos' 
 Cosmogeny must not be confounded with the same term 
 m Its metaphysical sense-Cosmogony, the doctrine of primor- 
 dial genesis. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF DESCRIPTIVE BIOLOGY : MICROGRAPHY. 
 
 First of all, let us thoroughly and briefly explain the concept 
 of liYing matter. In the general concept of matter we have 
 explamed the meaning of the abstract terms mass and move- 
 ment, and here we must now explain their correlative organic 
 terms, protoplasm and irritability. All the arguments employed 
 to convince us that mass and movement are merely concepts 
 or mental abstractions are equally applicable to the concepts 
 of protoplasm and irritability. They are nothing but words 
 comprehending all the abstractions referring to organism in 
 general ; for any organised object is in reality one alone, and 
 not an aggregation of protoplasm and irritability : it is an 
 orgamsm, acting of course, and not an aggregate of organs 
 and functions. Hence protoplasm and irritability signify only 
 the ultimate notion of living attributes, and therefore represent 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE BIOLOGY; MICROGRAPHY. 
 
 93 
 
 the limit of generalisations in the inductive process regarding 
 
 living bodies. 
 
 Physiologists, whether they have forgotten or ignored the 
 true ideal signification of such abstract terms, have arrived 
 at the erroneous conclusion that living phenomena are simply 
 consequences of attraction and repulsion, resulting from the 
 concurrence of some elemental substances, and consider 
 nature as a continuous succession of cause and effect sub- 
 ordinate only to those mechanical laws which they consider 
 as the Primordial Cause, and therefore suppose objects 
 endowed with inherent power of transformation, which has 
 determined in the Universe, they say, a vast process of de- 
 velopment or evolution. 
 
 We do not tire of repeating that the mental necessity of 
 abstractions in the formation of thought, and in its communica- 
 tion by language, must not be confounded with the concrete 
 nouns which represent things existing in reality. Thus, there 
 are not two independent beings, one static and the other 
 dynamic : this distinction is only a verbal one, imposed by 
 descriptive discourse, and nothing else, and therefore an 
 organism is not a compound of protoplasm and irritability ; 
 on the contrary, living bodies are constituted of an irriuble 
 matter called protoplasm, but we must not forget that such a 
 qualification as irritable does not represent any abstract force 
 to produce living reactions (irritability), but the mechanical 
 result of the combined intermotions in organism. 
 
 How many discussions lost in confusion have been sustained 
 in all centuries by men, otherwise very distinguished in science, 
 thinking that such a separation, which is purely verbal, is a 
 
 real one ! 
 
 Accordingly, there is no such thing as irritability in the 
 sense of a vital force : the first agent we know in the sphere 
 

 54 
 
 BIOLOGY. 
 
 *,'- 
 
 of physiological actions is already a secondary one : this 
 agen . progene in movement under its two forms oscillatory 
 
 ^olr K ''"'' "' ''"' "'^^"^"^^ "'^^^ communicated to 
 ponderable matter produce the apparent effects of attraction 
 
 etr^eT t: ^''''' ^^ '^^^ ^^"^' '^^^"^^'^ ^^ ^--^n 
 enemies rh,s occurs in the same manner in living as in 
 
 dead matter. Translatory movement, being implied in pheno- 
 mena havmg the appearance of molecular attraction, as 
 cohesion affimty and gravity, necessarily supposes the cur;ent 
 action of progene, while the oscillatory movement of progene 
 wh,ch causes heat must be the origin of all phenomena having 
 the appearance of molecular repulsion. Besides, there are 
 phenomena called magnetic which have the appearance of 
 molar attraction and repulsion ; these must necessarily be 
 determmed by translatory movement of progene, and therefore 
 hey must be considered as effects of progenic potence in 
 all Nature, m the inorganic as well as in the organic world. 
 
 These terms inorganic and organic or organised are some- 
 what equivocal, as chemists and naturalists use them in a 
 different sense-chemists including the so-called immediate 
 principles as organic matter, while naturalists have the tendency 
 to arcumscribe organic to those complex parts of a being 
 which are engaged in an especial function. We use the term 
 inorganic here when we make reference to that which results 
 from the phenomenal and substantial analysis of Cosmos 
 and which we may refer to bodies lacking life as well as to 
 living bodies, in opposition to the qualification organic, which 
 we apply only to living matter (that is, to the synthetic 
 structures and operations of living bodies, from the most 
 simple to the most complex) and to the complex though 
 dead matter which can only be formed by organism. Thus 
 the cellule (and aU living matter derived from it) is organic 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE BIOLOGY: MiCROGkAPHV. 
 
 05 
 
 substance, and the generation in the individual as well as in 
 the species is organic activity. 
 
 Authors of Biology generally make two syntheses, separating 
 the vegetable and animal. In vegetable synthesis they com- 
 prehend reproduction (a function of visible cellular movement) 
 and nutrition (a function of invisible molecular movement). 
 They consider animal synthesis more complex, comprehending, 
 besides two other functions, muscular contraction (a function 
 consisting of a visible return movement) and innervation (a 
 function of potential or latent change). But such a distinction 
 between vegetable and animal life cannot be made, as it is not 
 a true one, at least in Abstract Biology, because the vegetable 
 kingdom is not absolutely wanting in the two functions which 
 they consider special to the animal kingdom. Thus, then, 
 biological synthesis must be one comprehending the four 
 kinds of functions : reproduction, nutrition, contraction, and 
 innervation. 
 
 We must bear in mind that mental or conscious activity 
 must not be comprehended in real or sensual nature; ideal 
 or psychic entity does not correspond to physiological studies, 
 and consequently Biology must not intrude into what is 
 exclusively under the jurisdiction of the mind, and beyond 
 the reach of our senses. 
 
 All organism in its origin or ovular state is a minute globule 
 essentially formed of a highly complex organised substance 
 called protoplasm, which is usually enveloped in a membrane 
 called cellular, and ordinarily contains a condensed nucleus. 
 There are many living bodies whose constant state is the 
 globular, called also cellular: such are the microscopic organisms 
 called unicellular ; but most living bodies (those which are seen 
 by the naked eye) grow by a cellular multiplication, the 
 numerous cellules being developed and arranged in marvellous 
 
96 
 
 B/oLocy. 
 
 order, forming a multicellular organism. In these some of the 
 cellules lose their primitive globular form, and take fibrous, 
 tubular and membranous forms; others form a substance of 
 uniform appearance, separating the cellules more or less from 
 one another, being called for this reason intercellular substance 
 wh.ch may be either solid or liquid-in the first case forming 
 tissues, and in the second the constituent liquids of organism 
 
 I-rom the chemical analysis of the ovule and its derived 
 organic elements four simple bodies principally result-carbon 
 oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen,-which, combined with very' 
 small proportions of other elements (sulphur, phosphorus, 
 chlorine, sodium, potassium, calcium, and iron), form chemical 
 species of definite composition called organic principles, 
 which may be separated and distinguished from one another by 
 molar division, without being subjected to chemical analysis 
 
 Particular attention must be called to the fact that all 
 the immediate principles of organism are compounds of 
 carbon-a fixed solid, perhaps the most perfect in its solidity 
 -and of the gases oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, which 
 are the only ones that can be called perfect in their gaseous 
 state. This condition, being so general in organic consti 
 tu ion, must be very important, although its object is as 
 yet unknown to us. 
 
 The substances for the formation or elaboration of organ- 
 isms are of two kinds-ponderable and imponderable ; the 
 earth and atmosphere are the source of ponderable substances, 
 and the rays of light are the source of the imponderable 
 meta-fluid or progene. 
 
 The first and most important fact of the elaboration of 
 immediate principles occurs chiefly in vegetables, whose 
 leaves and other green parts containing chlorophyll may 
 appropriate the progene necessary to pro^iuce a chemical 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE BIOLOGY: MICROGRAPHY. 
 
 97 
 
 reaction between carbonic acid and water, in order to form 
 hydrocarburet and eliminate oxygen. Rays of light are also 
 necessary for the successive reactions of organism, among 
 which the most important is dishydratation (elimination of 
 water from a combination). In organism there are not only 
 reactions with absorption of heat, or endothermic reactions, 
 but also exothermic reactions, in which there is elimination 
 of heat and carbonic acid with absorption of oxygen. These 
 last combinations occur in organic matter which lacks chloro- 
 phyll (colouring substance), and also in all organisms when 
 not under the action of sunlight; they are necessary for 
 calorific reparation in organism, and for the compensation of 
 other losses of living force, which are continually dissipated 
 in the works of Cosmic Mechanism. So during the night 
 all living bodies, whatever their colour and class, exhale the 
 products of exothermic reactions, while during the day there 
 is an «xcess of endothermic combinations, or chemical re- 
 duction in the green vegetation which contains chlorophyll. 
 Inferior microscopic organisms also assist the vegetable 
 kingdom in its work of organic formation, especially in the 
 elaboration of nitrogenous principles. Chemical reaction of 
 animal life is a kind of oxidation, which ends in the destruc- 
 tion of organic matter, thus providing the heat and movement 
 necessary for the play of their own mechanism and that of 
 the world in general. The constituent substances of organism, 
 progene included, are in this manner in constant circulation, 
 being taken from inorganic means by the vegetable world 
 and restored to that cosmic means by animal life. 
 
98 
 
 BIOLOGY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF GENESIC BIOLOGY ; MICROGENY. 
 
 Organic genesis comprehends individual evolution during the 
 time an organism preserves its existence, and reproduction of 
 species when the multiplication of beings is produced. 
 
 Individual evolution may be summarised in the three following 
 propositions : — 
 
 ist. The vegetable world produces transferences of progenic 
 energies propagated from the inorganic world into molecular 
 energies, while the animal kingdom transfers the progenic 
 and molecular energies which it draws from the vegetable 
 world into molar energies, and restores to the inorganic world 
 the progenic power, which was transferred into molecular by 
 vegetation. 
 
 2nd. In lK)th living kingdoms such acts have chemical 
 metamorphosis as the first manifestations of vitality, whose 
 force is measured by calories, and therefore the calories must 
 also serve as a standard of comparison to determine the relative 
 quantivalence of vitality. This concept is indispensable for 
 the progress of Biology, and will be made by taking as a basis 
 the law of maximum work when we discover the transforma- 
 tions which take place in every being, and the degree of 
 stability in its composition. 
 
 3rd. The potence which is the limit of our physiological 
 mvestigations is progenic; admitting and recognising that the 
 Generatmg Cause (Creator) constructs organic structures by 
 means of currents of progene in the same manner as the 
 morganic combinations are formed, because at bottom organic 
 
 GENESIC BIOLOGY: MICROGENY. 
 
 99 
 
 as well as inorganic reactions are only material combinations 
 or changes in molecular extension. 
 
 And what is the interaction between the Generating Cause 
 and progene ? This is a metaphysical problem. Physiology 
 only investigates the successive changes which are effected in 
 organic structures already formed. Neither can the selective 
 organising power of vitality, which is the sole cause of pro- 
 motion in nature, directly operate more than in living bodies ; 
 nor can an organism be formed by only a transmutation or 
 transference from phenomena or material changes. Vital 
 power in itself must not be included in the physical investi- 
 gations of the successive changes of the Universe, because we 
 cannot know by the senses, nor can we derive from pheno- 
 mena alone, the knowledge of the Primordial Cause which 
 constantly perturbs Nature in its well-ordered concert. We 
 must not confound the physiological concept of Cosmogeny 
 with the primordial genesis of Metaphysics, for this doctrine 
 has nothing to do with objective sciences. 
 
 Organism by such a power of collocation, which determines 
 its reproduction and development, needs ponderable matter to 
 constitute its tangible structures, and imponderable matter to 
 employ as a mechanical means in transferences or indirect 
 transmissions. In this manner organism is the origin of all 
 natural phenomena, realising a work of production of living 
 force at the expense of potential energy in order to repair the 
 dissipation of manifested energy in those partial systems called 
 mechanic. Effectually living bodies appropriate cosmic 
 potence (latent progene) and surrounding matter to form 
 organic structures ; and to generate such a complicated colloca- 
 tion of material it is necessary not only to assimilate ponderable 
 matter, but to increase the progenic energy which is freed in 
 the moment of decomposition. 
 

 lOO 
 
 BIOLOGY, 
 
 We can show at a glance the difference between mechanic 
 and genesic work by means of brief formulae, representing by 
 small r the resulting living force of change, and by small /the 
 living force expended. Then we have the formulae :— 
 
 Mechanical work, = M, is r </; 
 Genesic work, = C, is r>/ 
 
 And representing by capital ^ and F the sum of the resultant 
 and expended forces in the whole Cosmos, including potential 
 state, we have 
 
 Cosmic work, - C, is ^ - /*. 
 
 We know by mechanics that the work of any transference 
 may be presented in round numl^ers thus : r=^ ; and therefore, 
 with the guarantee of the principle of conservation of energy 
 in the universe, we infer the formula of genesic work in round 
 numbers r — 2/. This is the formula of the great secret of 
 Nature, as it represents the antagonistic and repairing action 
 of mechanical dissipation. The total work of Cosmos, com- 
 prehending both ^ and 2/ which we represent in a whole 
 by R, may be condensed in the formula R ^ F, that is, con- 
 servation of energy. In this last formula and principle we 
 must take into account the constant conversion of living force 
 in mechanism into latent by the determined resistance of 
 centrifugal oscillation and the centripetal pressure of progene 
 in ponderable matter— that is to say, by thermic potence and 
 principally by the resistance of gravity. 
 
 Mechanical or artificial synthesis must not be confounded 
 with biological or natural. The difference does not consist in 
 the possibility of producing any change whatever. When a 
 chemist combines carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, to 
 form immediate principles, he cannot do it as an organism, 
 because he needs to employ a living force greater than the 
 
 GENESIC BIOLOGY: MICROGENY. 
 
 lOI 
 
 resultant. In the same manner, if a chemist in the future 
 should be able to accumulate the immediate principles in order 
 to form protoplasm, it is certain that the work then produced 
 will be under the same mechanical condition, that is, according 
 to the formula r ^/or r=^— phenomenal resultant about half 
 less than employed force (excluding that which is latent). A 
 chemist will never be able to do that which is done by an 
 organism, to elaborate organic matter with the formula r > /, 
 or r = 2/— that is, phenomenal resultant twice as great as the 
 expended living force: this is a problem which Chemistry 
 cannot resolve, any more than Mechanics can ever resolve the 
 problem of perpetual movement, which is a cosmic work 
 according to the formula R = i^— resultant equal to the 
 expended force. This is sufficient to set aside all trans- 
 formistic ideas which try to explain the origin and evolution 
 of Nature by matter alone, the only principle which trans- 
 formists admit in the Universe. 
 
 Many scientists believe that, in the future, chemical synthesis 
 will be able to explain organic generation, basing this belief 
 on the sole reason that they expect to elaborate all the 
 immediate principles of organic bodies. But this would not 
 be an organic synthesis ; it would be only the first link in the 
 chain of successive analysis. Furthermore, even if we suppose 
 that the chemist of the future in the laboratory can reach that 
 point where he can associate the immediate principles to 
 form a complete organic structure, is it logical to deny an 
 elaborating intelligence to the natural laboratory of a living 
 body when we necessarily admit it in the artificial one ? Such 
 a primordial organising intelligence is not, in truth, perceived 
 by the human mind, because no one can be conscious of 
 another's intelligence ; but it must be conscious in the Divinity 
 itself, it being contradictory to suppose an unconscious intelli- 
 
I02 
 
 BIOLOGY, 
 
 gence, and in it alone arc the purpose and finality of objects 
 or natural beings. * 
 
 The conditions of the cosmic means are never complete 
 or perfect for the development of an organism, as in the 
 successive mtermingling phenomena of Cosmos there is always 
 some deficiency; and so in a finite number of objects L 
 never contemplate absolute qualities, which can be attributed 
 onb- to the Infinite. The Infinite alone can be true, good, 
 and beautiful in absolute ; only the Universe as a whole 
 ■s a true, good, and beautiful system in absolute : one part 
 a one, as the living body, cannot be more than relative in 
 aJl and for all. 
 
 In General Physics we have demonstrated that all forces 
 are measures of resulting movements, and that all physiological 
 laws express only relations among the efiects of Nature • 
 neither forces nor mechanical laws are generating causes' 
 which could produce primordial effects. It is therefore a 
 pretension not to be realised, that tendency of modern 
 authors of Physiology to explain all natural phenomena by 
 variations in the structure and configuration of bodies ; other- 
 wise we should onlyjiave to invert the terms of the phrase 
 and then say that the formation and configuration of organic 
 structures are explained by themselves. But this is evidently 
 false, because the greatest analogies in the germs of organism 
 correspond to the greatest individual differences in their 
 ulterior development, that is, in the phenomena of their 
 succession. 
 
 The collocation of matter in organism is an inconceivable 
 change; it is completely opposed to the fact of inertia of 
 matter, and is therefore an action of immaterial influence. 
 Eff-ectually, by propagation of movement alone we cannot 
 construct any organised body, even theoretically, because as 
 
 GENESIC BIOLOGY: MICROGENY, 
 
 »03 
 
 we hrve already seen, in it the contrary happens to what 
 takes place in an inorganic machine: there is a conversion 
 of latent power into manifested, from this resulting the genera- 
 tion of actual and disposable forces, instead of the dissipation 
 of living or phenomenal energy, as we see constantly produced 
 by any pure mechanical means, complicated and perfect though 
 
 it may be. 
 
 The power of generation or of collocation in organism is 
 metaphysical ; nevertheless we have sufficient reason to declare 
 fully that there is no possibility of explaining the construction 
 of living matter more than by the influence of an Intelligent 
 Cause, which cannot be perceived by our consciousness. The 
 generation of potence which directs the collocation of organic 
 principles in the construction of a living body is as enigmatic 
 as the creation of inorganic material. 
 
 Cellular Multiplication.— K complete exposition and dis- 
 cussion of the different doctrines of organic generation would 
 be almost interminable, but we will confine ourselves here 
 to mentioning only the principal ones, and these as briefly 
 as possible. All may be comprehended in two groups : one 
 embraces those pretending to give a genesic explanation, 
 or discover the original mystery by expressing vain words 
 representing abstract forces— as biontologic animism, vitalism, 
 directing and creating force, vital affinity, and so on; and 
 the other group comprehends the descriptive explanations of 
 the formation of new cellules, as the so-called cellular and 
 blastematic theories. 
 
 Some histologists, of the French school in particular, 
 sustain that among the morphologic elements of organic 
 tissues there are semi-liquid substances which almost always 
 contain elements of new formation which they suppose to 
 be formed by a kind of free condensation of this semi-liquid 
 
I04 
 
 BIOLOGY. 
 
 they call blastema. Those who sustain this free cellular 
 formafon admit it ir, the following cases :-rst, Generation 
 
 til r?'*?""? ''""'"'■" ^™"'^ ^"^ '■'='"="^) ■' ^"d. I-o^a- 
 t.on of the first elements of an embryo ; 3rd. Generation and 
 
 rcgeneratmn of epithelium ; and 4th, Generation of the greater 
 part of pathologic neoplasm. 
 
 The cellular theory is principally held by the German 
 school, and is to-day the most extended throughout the 
 world. Its propositions may be expressed in the following 
 terms :_.st The cellule is the characteristic and pre-existent 
 element of all living forms, the succession and conservation 
 of vitahty being linked to it; .nd. The nucleus is the part 
 wh,ch contributes most to sustain and multiply the living 
 elements; 3rd, The protoplasm is the part which gives to 
 the cellules their special characters; and 4th, Every cellule 
 of those formmg a complex organism is an individuality which 
 
 This last proposition expresses as erroneous a concept of 
 ^e e„u e as does that of physicists and chemists about 
 
 wlr emn. J"" °"' "''"'' "'^ ^"'"'^ "^euments which 
 Thus rr,M "'"T ""'"" •'"°""'=" '■' •-'P'^'-We here. 
 
 dement always analogous and constant in all living todies- 
 thus stnppmg the cellule, which has a true cellular figure 
 
 thai e 1"^ '"'."'•" '■" "■" ^^^' "^ ^°"-'^ existence.' S 
 although ths may l,e under a diffuse, asymmetrical and 
 perhaps sem.-hquid form. On the other hand, without de ay 
 ng ourselves to investigate the existence and functions of 
 blastema. ,e is sufficient here to remark that the two chLs 
 
 
 CELLULAR MULTLPLICATION, 
 
 105 
 
 French and German, do not differ essentially in their funda- 
 mental concepts, and that both are contradictory to the true 
 principles of Physiological Theory, as they tend to inculcate 
 independence among the parts of the System, so sowing the 
 unsound seeds of transformism. 
 
 All living beings, elemental as well as complex, are subject 
 to a fixed determined evolution, being necessarily born from 
 a germ ; our organism, as well as every one of the living 
 elements which constitute it, must be engendered in direct 
 succession : omne vivum ex (n'o=^omnis cellula a cellula. We 
 recognise the truth of this assertion of the cellular theory, but 
 we interpret the term cellule in the most extended sense 
 according to abstract signification, including in it even the 
 free masses of protoplasm ; although in general, especially in 
 superior beings, the generating elements have their own form 
 more or less like a typical cellule. 
 
 After birth all individuals follow three successive stages 
 during development — growth, fixed condition, and declining to 
 death. Growth depends on the sum of the interaction of 
 constituent elements producing an increase of the anatomic 
 elements already existing, principally by new elements formed 
 by multiplication of those pre-existent. The form of organic 
 growth explains the other two stages in the evolution of life, 
 because they grow in their totality relatively more on their 
 surface, as the ratio of the cube to the square. The molar 
 work also, principally in animal life, is greater in proportion 
 to the growth, without increasing the ingress of matter ; and 
 besides the constant diffusion of liquids through the mem- 
 branes, leaves mineral substances incrusted in them, eventually 
 producing their true mineralisation, which decreases their 
 endosmotic power, and therefore their activity for the inter- 
 change of matter. 
 
PART FOURTH. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF ABSTRACT COSMOLOGY, 
 
 CHAP. XXII. Principles of Descriptive Cosmology : Cosmo- 
 graphy. 
 ^ XXIII. Principles of Genesic Cosmology: Cosmogeny. 
 
 A. General Idea of Involution of Cosmos. 
 „ XXIV. Cosmogeny {continued). 
 
 B, Circulation of Progene. 
 
PART FOURTH. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF ABSTRACT COSMOLOGY. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF DESCRIPTIVE COSMOLOGY : COSMOGRAPHY. 
 
 Descriptive studies are not fruitful in abstract considera- 
 tions; nevertheless, as in Biology we have mentioned the 
 most general data of organic elements, referring especially 
 to the best known cellular type — the ovule, — so in Cosmology 
 we will recapitulate the principal generalisations, inferring 
 them from the study of our planetary system, but particularly 
 from the earth ; although in addition to this something must 
 be said of the relations, analogies and differences between 
 the earth and the celestial bodies, more especially with the 
 sun and moon. We will commence with the earth, which 
 we will consider only in its totality. 
 
 Among the Greek sages we see the idea of the rotundity 
 of the earth already indicated, contrary to the irreflexive 
 belief of almost all humanity up to the sixteenth century. 
 But no practical demonstration was made until the modern 
 age, when Magellan (in 1520) sailed from Europe to Asia 
 and back again by doubling the South American promontory. 
 It is well known to-day that the earth is an oblate sphetbid, 
 
 V ', 
 
no 
 
 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 whose equatonal radius is 6,377,398 metres, and whose polar 
 
 of the ! 'h:' •' T"" '""'' '" "' ''' "^^ ^^"^^-^'-^ d»-"^eter 
 of the earth .s about 8,000 miles (12,754,786 metres). The 
 
 density of the earth, according to Aubinson, is from 5 to 6 
 but the average density in the superficial layers of the 
 earth being from 2 to 3, it has been supposed that in the 
 mtenor of the earth there are very heavy substances. We 
 must not forget that the nearer a body is to the centre of 
 U^e earth the weightier it is; therefore this condition must 
 be taken mto consideration in the true relation of densities 
 at different depths. The temperature of our planet is very 
 variable to the depth of twenty-seven metres; but beyond 
 hat It can be said that there is constantly a fixed temperature 
 he them.ometer always registering nearly „o ; 
 
 twenty-eight metres, the temperature increasing in a uniform 
 progression of one degree for every thirty metres of descent • 
 while, on the contrary, the higher we ascend over the surface' 
 of the earth the lower the temperature becomes 
 
 In order to simplify the description of our planet, it is 
 convenient to divide it into three parts-the surface, the 
 exterior or atmosphere, and the interior. These we may call 
 m correlation mesogeos, exogeos, and endogeos. Mesogeos 
 IS the irregular surface of our planet, and in its study we only 
 indicate the principal points concerning the distribution of land 
 and water. The highest points of the earth's surface are 
 generally less populous in living beings than the middle heights 
 and the most depressed parts are covered with water, in which 
 pullulates animal life in particular. At first sight there seems 
 a great disproportion between animal and vegetable life in 
 these three regions, which naturally serves to unbalance or 
 perturb cosmic functions. 
 We should pass far beyond the limits of this work \{ we 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE COSMOLOGY: COSMOGRAPHY. ill 
 
 were to explain here the concrete terms referring to the 
 different objective forms of our planet, as seas and continents, 
 mountains and valleys, etc., so we shall restrict ourselves to 
 the data needed for our abstract inferences. We must first 
 notice the vast extent of water on the earth's surface, and 
 its irregular distribution in relation to dry land. It may 
 be said that the greater part of the earth is covered with 
 water — about eight parts water and three parts land — that 
 is, almost three times as much water as land. The dry land 
 principally occupies two opposite sides of the planet, form- 
 ing in one part what we call the Old World, or Eurasia 
 and Africa, and in the other the New World, or America 
 (North and South). There are other portions of dry land 
 less vast, which are called islands, and which in many 
 cases form archipelagoes, the most important of which is 
 Oceania. 
 
 The distribution of land and water is very irregular, water 
 preponderating in the southern and land in the northern 
 hemisphere in the proportion of three to one. It is also 
 worthy of notice that the depth of the sea is greater than the 
 height of the mountains — a fact which still further increases 
 the proportion of the surface of the earth which is covered 
 with water. The uppermost layer of the earth is generally 
 " made ground," that is, a thin layer of soil ordinarily modified 
 by the artifices of human necessities; but beneath this is 
 what is called subsoil, which is very commonly exposed to 
 view by the denudation of waters and by artificial construc- 
 tions, and is seen by comparison to be of many different 
 kinds, as calcareous rocks, sand, chalk, clay, etc. Soil and 
 subsoil may be classified as sedimentary and crystalline ; the 
 sedimentary is of aquatic origin, formed by the precipitation 
 of dissolved substances, and the crystalline is supposed to 
 
112 
 
 COSMOLOGY, 
 
 
 have an igneous origin. The state of each in particular i, 
 the object of the concrete science of Mineralogy 
 
 consZe7:;T''"' '^ " g^-^^-ture, l^ing principally 
 one. It also mcludes in its composition aqueous vapour 
 carbon, ac.d, and a multitude of microscopic corpuscles o gan"c 
 and morga„,c. This mixture, moreover, besides ling comple 
 .3 very variable in the proportion of the mixed elemem,' 
 accordmg as it is day or night, and according to seaso 
 cmperature, winds, height, etc. Air is nearly eight hundred 
 fmes hghter than water; nevertheless the Influence of ts 
 we,ght over other bodies is a matter of great importanc 
 ^cause its height (not yet precisely determined) is Z^Zl. 
 
 the earth wh>ch, measured by the mercurial barometer is 
 equal to a column of 76 centimetres, with slight variations of 
 some m.ll,metres. The knowledge of the succession of mo^e 
 or less regular barometrical variations, as well as of the move- 
 ments of atmospheric translation (winds), does not belong to 
 cosmography, because it presupposes evolution in time and 
 explanafons of the reasons of such changes-cosmogeny. 
 We know that the material of which the earth is composed 
 
 shows m a succession one above the other. To enter into 
 detaUs of endogeos about the structure of these Ci t 
 mvade the province of a branch of Mineralogy called Geology, 
 wh,ch ,s a concrete science. The only important fact we neTd 
 treat of here .s that deduced from an indication already refer^d 
 o about subterranean temperature,_a„d that is. that if the 
 temperature increases regularly in relation to the depth or 
 distance from the surface, it is clear that at the depth of one 
 hundred kilometres (equal to the height of the atmosphere) I 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE COSMOLOGY : COSMOGRAPHY. 113 
 
 heat must be sufficient to melt all rocks, and therefore the 
 greater part of the interior of our planet is in a state of fusion, 
 the solid crust being relatively very thin. In the constitution 
 of Cosmos the earth is no more than a planet of secondary 
 magnitude ; let us now examine its principal relations to the 
 celestial bodies, especially to the sun and moon, as the sun is 
 in the focus of the ellipse described by the earth in its orbit and 
 annual revolution, and the moon is a satellite which revolves 
 round the earth. Both by their reflexion greatly influence 
 the changes of our planet, principally in the terrestrial fluids, 
 air and water, and above all more directly on the meta-fluid or 
 progene existing in porocules or the interstices of bodies. We 
 have already indicated, and we will clearly state in the next 
 chapter, that we must not consider the sun as the prime motor 
 in the production of the terrestrial phenomena. 
 
 The idea we form of the sun by irreflexive observation 
 is very deceitful. When viewed through a coloured glass 
 it appears like a white disc perfectly circular, whose diameter 
 does not seem greater than fifty centimetres, and whose surface 
 appears perfectly homogeneous ; and furthermore the solar 
 disc seems to move from west to east, following a curve whose 
 centre is the point on which the observer stands, and whose 
 extremes touch the visible horizon. 
 
 We know that the more distant an object is the smaller 
 it appears. Thus, calculating the distance of the sun from 
 the earth as about ninety millions of miles in round numbers, 
 the true diameter of the sun is inferred to be more than one 
 hundred times greater than that of the earth ; the difference 
 between the diameter of the sun and its distance from the 
 earth being almost in the same ratio, i : 100. To form some 
 comparative idea of these relations of size and distance, let 
 us imagine a sphere of one metre in diameter, at a distance 
 
 8 
 
 
114 
 
 COSMOLOGY, 
 
 of one hundred metres, to represent the sun, and a little ball, 
 one centimetre in diameter, to represent the size of the earth 
 and its relative position to the sun. Accordingly more than a 
 million balls like the earth would be necessary to make a sphere 
 like the sun. But perhaps we can acquire a clearer idea of 
 the extraordinary dimensions and distances referred to by the 
 following calculations. A ball shot from a cannon, moving 
 uniformly with its ordinary velocity, would take about thirteen 
 years to reach the sun; and if we suppose the ball diametrically 
 crossing the sun, it would take more than a month in passing 
 to the other side, while it would need only about seven hours 
 in crossing the earth's diameter. We can further acquire 
 some idea of the distance of the earth from the sun when 
 we consider that a train running at the rate of thirty miles an 
 hour would take about 350 years to accomplish the distance. 
 
 Telescopic observation reveals a fact worthy of mention. 
 The sun has spots, which appear and disappear every fourteen 
 days, reappearing on the eastern edge of the disc about fifteen 
 days after disappearing from its western edge. This regular 
 movement of the spots shows us that the sun is in rotation, and 
 that this rotation must be accomplished in about twenty-six days. 
 From this we infer, in accordance with the principles of our 
 Physiological Theory, that the sun needs a continent with living 
 matter in order to produce such a rotation ; but comparing it 
 with the earth, we must suppose that the ratio marking the 
 difference between land and water in the sun is much greater 
 than that of the earth, and we must deduce from this that the 
 great reflecting power of the sun is owing to the extraordinary 
 extent of surface covered with water. We must also explain the 
 lack of orbital movement in the sun by the fact that the propor- 
 tion of its surface on which vegetation can exist being relatively 
 small, the force of propulsion emanating from it is not sufficient 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE COSMOLOGY: COSMOGRAPHY, 115 
 
 to counteract the resistance of the solar atmosphere, and so 
 only a rotary movement results. 
 
 The moon, like the sun, produces many deceitful appearances, 
 among which the most surprising are the different forms it 
 presents during its successive stages; and we see that every 
 29 1 days the same phases are repeated. Nevertheless it is 
 demonstrated that the moon is an entirely round or regular 
 sphere, and that such phases depend on the greater or less 
 surface which reflects the sunlight. Its distance from the 
 earth is, in round numbers, something more than 300,000 miles 
 (about 380,000 kilometres) — that is, about three hundred times 
 nearer than the sun, and therefore a distance almost equal to 
 the third part of the solar diameter. Accordingly the space 
 between the earth and the moon is only sufficient to accom 
 modate a body twenty-seven times smaller than the sun. The 
 diameter of the moon is almost one-fourth (^) that of the 
 earth, and its size is forty times less. The received opinion of 
 most authors is that the moon has no atmosphere and lacks 
 water, and consequently cannot contain living beings; but from 
 the general principles laid down in this Physiological Theory, 
 we infer that the moon in order to accomplish its orbital and 
 rotary movements requires life, as does our own planet. It is 
 not possible to determine the forms of living matter, but 
 we have sufficient reason to affirm its existence. 
 
 Analogies exist between all the other heavenly bodies and 
 the sun, the earth or the moon, but their study is particular 
 or concrete. We only need to know as a general fact that 
 the differences among all of them are not absolute, and the 
 transitions are graduated in such a manner that, relying on the 
 late spectroscopic observations, we can proclaim the analogy 
 of the constituent material without any other difference than 
 in the proportions of its components, and thus can add that 
 

 in all the Universe perfect harmony reigns in the descriptive 
 relations— those of space, as well as in the genesic— those of 
 time. This point, Cosmic Involution, will be elucidated in 
 the next chapters. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF GENESIC COSMOLOGY: COSMOGENV. 
 
 (A. General concept of Cosmic involution.) 
 
 Physiology presupposes attributive identity (only one sub- 
 stance in activity or movement), the differences being due 
 only to relative changes of space or of time, or else of both. 
 The only possible knowledge of nature depends on the con- 
 dition that all change is a transformation. Matter changes 
 by the union or separation of parts, but through all these 
 transformations we must suppose that material substance is 
 always identical; and we may say the same in regard to 
 movement, which may be distributed in greater or smaller 
 masses, in a form either manifested or latent; but material 
 activity is always movement. Thus the Great Architect, with 
 His true purposes of goodness, beauty and harmony, directs 
 organic constructions, engenders in them disposable energy 
 and phenomenal movements, governs the course of cosmic 
 material, but without changing the total quantity of mass in 
 movement- that is, without ever newly creating or annihilating. 
 He only engenders relative metamorphoses in the redistribu- 
 tion of the same quantity of mass in movement. The concept 
 of conservation of energy or movement is entirely different 
 from the continuation of the actual state of the things in the 
 Universe : the former expresses a fact derived from the true 
 
 GENESIC COSMOLOGY: COSMOGENV. 
 
 117 
 
 creation, while phenomenal activity is constandy engendered 
 by the transformation of potential energy in organisms under 
 the direction of the Primordial Motor. The work directed by 
 the Creator not only preserves the quantity of mass in move- 
 ment in its mechanical relations, but the persistence of the 
 Supreme purpose in the good and beauty of its execution is 
 denoted by the uniformity of nature. This ultimate postulate 
 is presupposed before any calculation or determination of the 
 quantitative relations are made; it is directly induced from 
 the qualities or subjective differences, and for this reason we 
 may say that the postulate Uniformity of Nature is the funda- 
 mental principle of attributive abstractions, while the principle 
 of Conservation of Energy is the fundamental law for the 
 relations or objective differences. Accordingly the true idea 
 of conservation or persistency in universal mechanism pre- 
 supposes that the partial forms of the enunciation of that 
 principle are erroneous, so that we must not say there is 
 conservation or indestructibility of mass in the world because 
 the quantity of mass is variable ; neither can we affirm the 
 conservation or indestructibility of abstract movement because 
 the quantity of existing force, considering this separately from 
 mass, is not always the same, but varies like any partial 
 
 relation. 
 
 Without the evidence of the principle of successive con- 
 tinuity and uniformity in nature between antecedents and 
 consequents Science could not infer its great prognostications : 
 it could not determine by the present state of things either the 
 past or the future, as there is no doubt but that our scientific 
 calculations would fail if there could actually be new creation 
 or annihilation in the factors of Mechanism. But it is im- 
 possible that the regularity of the established and necessary 
 order in Cosmos should fail, because, the work of the Almighty 
 
ii8 
 
 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 being true, good and beautiful in absolute, it could not be 
 otherwise than as it is. 
 
 In the comprehensive theory of Cosmos we omit the inter- 
 vention of any agent acting as causing force, as we have done 
 in the theory of Analytical Physiology ; and in Biology also 
 we deny the intervention of any special force in life. In this 
 manner we dethrone the gods of the scientific Olympus, and 
 admit only the One of the most elevated rank-the Directing 
 Power of Vitality, which cannot be other than the Creator 
 Force must never be considered as an abstraction from 
 objective things; mechanical force is not an absolute and 
 primordial cause of Nature, but simply a measure, and there- 
 .ore It is a relative determination of quantity, an effect which 
 becomes at the same time the proximate cause of manifested 
 actions, so that it \s a secondary cause in the successive 
 changes of Nature. Force expresses the determination of the 
 quantity of movement propagated in a physiological change 
 or in the changes of a partial system, as occurs in the synthesis 
 of life. If we conceive force in a metaphysical as well as in 
 a mechanical sense, it would l>ecome an equivocal term re- 
 presenting then, in the metaphysical signification, the True 
 Cause, the Primordial or Engendering Potence of Vitality • 
 because, if we prefix to the word force the adjective primordial' 
 we indicate what the Divinity does in Cosmos instead of 
 the effected potence and phenomena. 
 
 All phenomena are mechanical in the true sense of this 
 word, as they are always the effect of some change of matter 
 in movement, therefore it is erroneous to admit the abstract 
 conception of mechanism as an independent reality all 
 phenomena take place within the universal organism, in which 
 any mechanical motion or effect of movement cannot be 
 separately conceived, but can be conceived only as a mental or 
 
 INVOLUTION OF COSMOS. 
 
 119 
 
 verbal abstraction without an existence independent from the 
 bodies, like colour or any other so-called property. 
 
 All phenomena, compared according to the standard of 
 discrete quantity, are quantivalent in their mutations, so that 
 all natural changes (molar and physico-chemical) are sub- 
 ordinate to the rational principles of quantity, as the so-called 
 laws of Mechanism are nothing more than corollaries derived 
 from the universal principle of conservation. In any functional 
 transference or propagation of vitality, as in any other physio- 
 logical change, we must admit the principle of mechanical 
 quantivalence— that is, a proportional interchange in the 
 energy of antecedents and consequents. Therefore in organ- 
 ism, as well as in inorganic machines, there is always a direct 
 relation between the molar work produced and the heat 
 expended; this in turn must be in direct relation with the 
 chemical movements which produce it, and these reactions 
 must be proportional to the progenic currents which change 
 the position of the molecules. 
 
 If Mechanics were well known in its most comprehensive or 
 etymological signification, it would be the science which would 
 interpret the genesis of natural phenomena, and would embrace 
 the study and explanation of all material mutations in Cosmos, 
 determining the force of every change, which, in corpuscular 
 matter, is equal to the product of the mass and half the square 
 of the velocity. The physical, chemical and biological theories, 
 now widely disseminated under contradictory principles, must 
 be thus unified. 
 
 All material changes, whether manifested or not, though 
 multiple in the sensual appearance, always arise from matter 
 in movement. Hence, we repeat, all mechanical force must 
 always be supposed as a concrete measure comprehending the 
 two factors of all movement, mass and velocity ; we must never 
 
120 
 
 COSMOLOGY, 
 
 suppose the ideal existence of abstract forces without dimen- 
 sions moving across empty space, neither must we admit them 
 to explain the functions of organism. 
 
 Cosmic and biological syntheses, in as far as we can know 
 them, are under the control of Mathematics. A true inquiry 
 into Nature and the proof of physiological truths have for a 
 base the facts of extrinsic experience, from which our reason 
 calculates the relations which must serve us to develop the 
 Physiological Theory. Mechanical theorems are the real 
 guide of physiological science ; the principle of conservation 
 IS common to physical and chemical changes, to acts of vitality 
 and to astronomic movements ; the calculation of the move- 
 ments of visible bodies (Molar Mechanics) must be applied to 
 the invisible particles called molecules (Molecular Mechanics) 
 and to progene (Progenic Mechanics). 
 
 ^^'hen we question the material worid, whatever its state 
 may be, the determination of quantity by calculation {i.e by 
 the infallible law of number) is a help of undoubted exactitude 
 But unfortunately we cannot numerically determine phenomena 
 m all cases ; science has scarcely passed from the analytic 
 acquisitions of irreflexive experience, qualities for this reason 
 being yet erroneously considered as objective properties. In 
 actuality, much imperfection of true scientific knowledge yet 
 prevails ; nevertheless it does not weaken the base on which 
 the principle of conservation rests, because, our intelligence 
 penetrating more deeply than our senses, foresees the true 
 analogy, where sensations show us what falsely appear to be 
 essential differences. Although up to the present time science 
 has not been able to prove numerically all physiological facts 
 we have arrived at an ultimate principle which comprehends 
 them all, both known and unknown : that is, though much 
 remains to be discovered, we have sufficient knowledge to 
 
 INVOLUTION OF COSMOS. 
 
 121 
 
 declare that all the laws of the science of Nature are compre- 
 hended in the principle of proportional interchange (quanti- 
 valence), which is synonymous with the principle of persistency 
 or conservation. For this reason, after numerous observations, 
 we have convinced ourselves that all future discoveries will be 
 subordinate to the universal principle of conservation and in 
 accordance with the ultimate postulate of uniformity; hence 
 the true progress of the Physiological Theory consists in 
 explaining the derivation of all empirical laws actually pro- 
 claimed in Physics, Chemistry, Cosmology, and Biology, by 
 the conservation of energy in Cosmic Mechanism. 
 
 In the Physiological Theory we must not confound the 
 evident principle of conservation of energy with the erroneous 
 supposition of continuity in transformism, as this doctrine 
 employs the word conservation in such an ample sense that it 
 completely lacks a fixed signification. Furthermore, trans- 
 formists include in *' continuity " the reason of its antithesis, 
 " variation," although they pretend to disguise the opposition or 
 contradiction of terms with the adjective " infinitesimal," and 
 then qualify as continuous the variations they call infinitesimal. 
 The Physiological Theory resolves this problem without the 
 intervention of moving forces in Nature, and without appealing 
 to such a fallacy as that of transformism : in fine, it settles that 
 Cosmos does not follow the phases of transformistic evolution, 
 hut is in a true involution. 
 

 122 
 
 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 cosMOGENY ,(continued). 
 (B, Circulation of progene : reparation of living force in Cosmos.) 
 Among the questions which have been the subject of greatest 
 controversy, the most important is how to explain the repara- 
 tion of the living force which is constantly dissipated in the 
 world. 
 
 We have already demonstrated the error of admitting 
 abstract or causing forces in matter, as well as inherent 
 properties like elasticity and movement. The Universe left 
 to the sole action of mechanical energy has the tendency 
 to relative repose, and in this state there could be no 
 manifested change, because progene would soon be reduced 
 to uniform oscillation, which is latent of course ; therefore, 
 from such a condition any other consequent cannot b^ 
 derived than the perfect stable equilibrium of all bodies. 
 Such loss of actual force, with the tendency to relative repose, 
 is well and clearly seen in all visible or molar movement,' 
 and also in the partial movements from which molecular pheno- 
 mena, as thermo-physic and therm o-chemic changes, arise. 
 We can most palpably appreciate the dissipation of manifested 
 action in the collision of inelastic bodies, and in fire when 
 the combustion is complete ; but all phenomena would cease 
 if the initial impulse, which is the power of redistribution in 
 organism, should not constantly repair the living force, so 
 keeping Cosmos in uniform reaction. 
 
 REPARATION OF LIVING FORCE. 
 
 123 
 
 No phenomena can occur in Cosmos without some change 
 of matter in movement ; progene is the medium in the organic 
 as well as in the inorganic world by which propagations and 
 transferences of movement at a distance are made, and also 
 for determining the phenomena or manifested operations 
 and the potential or latent changes produced by invisible 
 movements. Let, us then, give a summary idea of progenic 
 circulation, as this is the cosmic medium used by vitality to 
 effect the actual changes in all matter, in the inorganic as well 
 as in the organic world, constantly transferring matter from 
 one to the other, and so producing the incessant whirlpool 
 of cosmic material change. 
 
 In order to understand this point thoroughly, we first call 
 attention to the periodicity of cosmic changes, whose proximate 
 cause is vital action and reaction, and whose primordial cause 
 is therefore the Creator. In fact, it comes within the province 
 of Biology to treat of the problem of the periodicity of vital 
 acts, and principally of diurnal and annual alternating differ- 
 ences, because such a periodicity depends on a general condition 
 of organism as a proximate cause, and it is manifested in 
 animal as well as in vegetable life, although it is more 
 noticeable in vegetation. But the results of such periodicity 
 are functions of the total Cosmos, and for this reason it must 
 be treated of here. 
 
 Intrinsic and extrinsic interactions of living bodies, although 
 continuous and therefore simultaneous, are variable in quantity, 
 alternating in periodicity in their increase and diminution in 
 such a manner, that when the intrinsic increase the extrinsic 
 decrease, and the reverse, so being always reciprocal. Such 
 variations are recognised in vegetable life by the differences 
 between absorption and elimination of matter during the day 
 and night, and in aninf\al life, especially in the superior scale. 
 
124 
 
 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 by the difference during their waking and sleeping hours. 
 Here, in spite of their reciprocity, there is a coincidence 
 between them : the greater part of the animal as well as of 
 the vegetable kingdom have their intrinsic activity in molecular 
 changes of oxidation greatly exaggerated during the night, 
 while the extrinsic is more exaggerated during the day' 
 in fact, almost all living bodies absorb more oxygen and 
 eliminate more carbonic acid during the night than during 
 the day. 
 
 All changes manifested in Nature proceed from the move- 
 ment of collocation or redistribution of matter in organism, 
 which constantly produces the transference of latent oscillation 
 of progene into translatory movement in order to produce the 
 chemical metamorphoses necessary for the multiplication 
 and growth of organic structures. This determines in the 
 Universe a constant current of progene, which sets ponderable 
 matter in movement, so as to produce manifested changes 
 in those parts which are in a latent state or in relative 
 repose, the loss of living force in the world being thus 
 compensated. This compensation in phenomenal Cosmos 
 has been explained up to the present date by the myths of 
 a scientific polytheism which admits plurality of abstract or 
 causing forces in Cosmos.* 
 
 Sunshine or photothermic irradiation is only the occasional 
 cause acting as a stimulus and means for the growth of green 
 vegetation, which absorbs and appropriates the sun*s rays 
 (progene) by the action of the chlorophyll, the progene serving 
 as a means of transporting the molecules into the arrangements 
 required by the organic structures. A biological reaction is 
 the same as any other chemical combination in which the 
 
 • We call liring force the phenomenal or actual energy, excluding the 
 latent or potential, which is not manifest to the senses, 
 
 REPARATION OF LIVING FORCE. 
 
 I2< 
 
 molecules must be moved by progenic currents, although in 
 organic collocation (vegetable and animal cellules) such 
 currents are necessarily under the direct government of the 
 Almighty, who is the only and true Vital Principle. 
 
 Progene is accumulated in all organic corpuscles by a 
 chemical operation called reduction. The more complex 
 living matter becomes, the more progene it contains ; and when 
 organic matter is decomposed by the chemical operation called 
 oxidation (which is contrary to reduction), the progene is freed, 
 and produces in this change either progenic propagations 
 (sound and light), or molecular transferences (changes of tem- 
 perature and of physical state), or else it may produce visible 
 or molar movements, of which further mention will be made. 
 In this manner vitality puts in action the mechanical force 
 which can be determined by the various forms of movement 
 —progenic, molecular, and molar. This point is worthy of 
 further consideration. 
 
 Organic phenomena or acts of vitality, which are simply 
 called functions in Physiology, need for their production some 
 previous change in progene, by the increase or decrease of 
 its oscillatory movement and the transference of this into 
 translatory— thus disturbing organism by an unequal distri- 
 bution of progene, which is condensed at some points and 
 rarefied at others. As a natural consequence of this disturb- 
 ance in the equilibrium, currents of progene are produced in 
 the moment when there is free contact or possible communica- 
 tion between the condensed and rarefied points. These 
 currents carry the molecules with them, and combine them 
 so as to form the immediate principles, mixing these among 
 themselves in order to construct organic forms. The first 
 result of such a chemical process is a great condensation of 
 progene in the cellules, principally in those which, containing 
 
126 
 
 ff 
 
 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 Chlorophyll, are capable of absorbing the progene of the sola^ 
 rays. The vegetable world above all is engaged in forming 
 the immediate principles-accumulating progene and ponder- 
 able matter in highly complex combinations. Owing to its 
 course, progene drives the molecules as well as the masses of 
 ponderable matter to determine their cohesion and translatory 
 movements, when these are the effect of an invisible propul- 
 sion. So also a current of progene is produced which flows 
 towards green vegetation ; and in this movement the progenic 
 parcels collide, so increasing the energy of their oscillations, 
 which must control the resistance of the molecules and move 
 them m order to determine the thermic and chemic changes of 
 hving matter, called altogether trophic or nutritive functions. 
 
 Chemical metamorphoses are of two classes-one of com- 
 bination, the other of decomposition. The decomposition of 
 an organic structure determines the contrary of that which 
 occurs in its formation, freeing the progene before condensed • 
 and so all kinds of transference can take place, of which the' 
 following are worthy of mention :-(i) Production of heat 
 (by a mechanism which it is not necessary to repeat here) • 
 
 (2) Production of light, when progene escapes in a diffuse' 
 manner and in such a proportion as to impress the retina 
 and of radiating heat if this change is not manifest to the eye • 
 
 (3) Production of positive electricity if progene is newly con- 
 fined in a body and in a latent state, which can occur in 
 two ways : in the form of a current (dynamic electricity), or in 
 repose (static electricity). In addition to this, as progene, in 
 order to accumulate at some points, must leave others rarefied 
 It produces latent forces, which are principally manifested by 
 the effects called magnetic electricity. But the different 
 classes and forms of movement being transferable, all forms 
 of phenomena afterwards result. Among these the most 
 
 CIRCULATION^ OF PROGENE. 
 
 127 
 
 striking are molar movements, which in turn are converted 
 into molecular and progenic. Thus, for instance, the molar 
 vibratory movement of bodies is the ordinary manner of 
 producing sound ; but the transmission of sound, which is the 
 chief characteristic of this phenomenon, is produced by the 
 transference of such vibrations into oscillatory movements of 
 progene. 
 
 In order to understand more clearly the circulation of 
 progene, we may compare it to the circulation of the blood, 
 and in accordance with this parallel divide it into a major 
 and minor circulation ; the former is the interstellar and the 
 latter the terrestrial current. The heart is represented by the 
 living bodies or organic world, the great capillary net by the 
 ocean of interstellar progene, and the small or pulmonary net 
 by the earth itself. The greater current of progene flows 
 towards the illuminated hemisphere of the earth, and flows 
 from the shaded hemisphere towards interstellar space; this 
 is the impulsive force of the total movements, orbital and 
 rotary, of our planet. The lesser circulation or smaller 
 current flows within and over the surface of the earth, espe- 
 cially from the equatorial regions towards the poles, where 
 there is a great want of progene on account of the scarcity of 
 vegetable in proportion to animal life. This is the great 
 magnetic current which directs the magnetic needle to the 
 pole. 
 
 There are four phenomena in the terrestrial globe which are 
 effected by permanent movements of progene : such are the 
 orbital and rotatory movements of the earth, terrestrial mag- 
 netism, and gravity. We must explain more clearly the total 
 movements of the earth by the progenic currents, which are 
 chiefly the effect of contrary reaction in vegetation during the 
 day and the night. 
 
128 
 
 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 We have already said that the explanation of terrestrial 
 movements by means of planetary forces is null, and yet 
 astronomers admit two planetary forces, one instantaneous and 
 the other continuous ; the former they suppose to have existed 
 at the moment when movement was originated in the celestial 
 bodies, and the latter is what they call universal attraction. 
 It is true that the sun and moon have great influence over the 
 movements of the earth ; but this is not the result of attractive 
 forces,— it arises from luminous reflexion, better called photo- 
 thermic. Supposing the earth in a determined position in 
 relation with the sun, that half which is illuminated absorbs 
 calories and gives forth oxygen, while that which is shaded 
 absorbs oxygen and emits carbonic acid and calories (progene). 
 Besides, animal life having a greater molecular change while 
 sleeping— that is, emitting more carbonic acid and absorbing 
 more oxygen than in waking hours— contributes to increase the 
 effects of the nocturnal change of vegetation. To this action 
 nocturnal animals do not, of course, contribute. In this 
 manner two progenic impulses are produced on the surface of 
 the earth : one diurnal, in the direction of the sunlight, and 
 the other nocturnal, in a direction contrary to that of the 
 escaping progene in the shaded hemisphere ; and according to 
 the principle of Mechanics the resultant of two forces acting 
 in different directions is a parabolic movement. But besides 
 this, as the resultants of such impulses are not in the direction 
 of its orbital movement, they determine at the same time the 
 diurnal rotation of the earth. Of course, the activity of 
 vegetation has no sudden variations ; they are gradual in the 
 endothermic as well as in the exothermic process, whose 
 maximum of intensity must be at noontime for the first and 
 after midnight towards dawn for the second. Accordingly the 
 night impulse may be compared to the propulsion of powder 
 
 Jf.i*;-, 
 
 CIRCULATION OF PROGENE. 
 
 129 
 
 in the combustion of fireworks ; such an impulse acting alone 
 would drive the earth in a closer curve towards the sun, but 
 the force of photothermic irradiation is an obstacle to such 
 approximation, as its direction is entirely contrary to that of 
 the other force. 
 
 The result of such a conflict is not alone a planetary revo- 
 lution; the progene in such progressive movements collides 
 with the corpuscles of ponderable matter, from this interaction 
 arising the so-called molecular forces of attraction (gravity) 
 and repulsion (thermity), and finally producing the force called 
 aflinity when chemical metamorphoses result from the conflict 
 of such motions. 
 
 With this we conclude our physiological inquiries, because 
 the direction or government of such progenic currents, which 
 produce the structures of organism, completely escape our 
 sensual observation; it only remains for us to add, that by 
 means of such organic collocation living matter manifests 
 nearly twice the energy it acquires from the cosmic means, 
 so producing a transference contrary to inorganic machines, as 
 it converts latent energy into phenomenal. This is the true 
 interpretation of the law of conservation in the actual state 
 of the Cosmic System, and the correct explanation of the 
 reparation of living force in Cosmos. 
 
CONCLUSIONS OF THIS PHYSIOLOGICAL 
 
 THEOR V. 
 
 SUMMARY : 
 
 1st. The Object of Universal Physiology is to make the 
 Analysis and Synthesis of Cosmic Mechanism, Unifying 
 ALL the Theories of Physics. Chemistry, Biology, and 
 Cosmology. 
 
 2nd. We admit the Unity of Substance and Activity in Matter, 
 BUT not Atomic Unity. 
 
 3rd. The Properties and Forces of Matter, including Gravi- 
 tation, are simply the Resultants of the Intermotion of 
 Progene with Atoms. 
 
 4th. All Physiological Propositions and Laws are Subordinate 
 TO THE Principle of Conservation— that is. all Physio- 
 LOGICAL Changes are Propagations of Movement without 
 ANY New Creation or Annihilation. 
 
 5th. We proclaim Monotheism in Sciences, admitting the Causal 
 Unity of the Universe, and Rejecting all Abstract or 
 Causing Forces in Nature. 
 
 
 1 
 
 m 
 
 
 m 
 
FIRST CONCLUSION, 
 
 133 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS OF THIS PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORY, 
 
 First Conclusion. — Our object has been the analysis and 
 synthesis of Cosmic Mechanism, unifying all the theories of 
 Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Cosmology. We have adopted 
 the title Universal Physiology to comprehend the whole 
 abstract knowledge of material Nature or physical Cosmos. 
 This is effectually an organic system, whose special analysis 
 has been divided in this work into three great departments. 
 Molar, Molecular and Progenic Physics ; and whose synthesis 
 has been divided into two departments. Biology and Cosmology, 
 according as it is partial, referring to living individuals, or 
 total, referring to Nature as a whole. 
 
 All the changes of Nature may be divided into two groups- 
 phenomenal or manifested, and potential or latent. There are 
 two kinds of phenomenal changes, total and partial ; in the 
 former we see the movements of bodies, while in the latter the 
 movements are recognised only by the intelligence which 
 refers them either to the two constituents of bodies, molecules 
 and progene, or to progene alone. From this arises our 
 distinction between molecular and progenic phenomena, each 
 comprising two kinds, which with molar movements give us 
 five kinds of natural phenomena. Furthermore, we have 
 already mentioned another kind of change, which we have 
 
'0' 
 
 134 CONCLUSIOXS OF THIS PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORY. 
 
 denominated potential, and this gives us the sixth material 
 change, as shown in the following correlative order : 
 
 1st, Molar Phenomena : Visible movements and equilibrium of bodies. 
 2nd, Thermic „ : Changes of temperature and of physical state. 
 3rd, Chemical „ : Metamorphosis in the composition of bodies. 
 4th, Acoustic „ : Oscillatory movement of progene. 
 5th, Optic „ : Photothermic emission of progene. 
 
 6th, Potential Changes : Electricity, latent and radiating heat. 
 
 In molar I phenomena the body changes its place in totality 
 without changing the relative disposition of its corpuscular and 
 progenic constituents; in molecular phenomena there is a 
 change of place in the minute corpuscles of bodies, and 
 therefore a change in the two corporeal constituents, without 
 any total movement ; and in progenic phenomena the change 
 is in progene alone apart from molar or molecular movement. 
 
 The distinction in physiological changes between propaga- 
 tions and transferences is relative, as in fact all material change 
 consists simply infpropagation of movement, and never in a 
 true transference ; but the propagation may be either homo- 
 logous or heterologous— that is, without or with change in the 
 form of movement—and from this arises our relative distinction 
 between simple propagations (homologous changes) and trans- 
 ferences (heterologous propagations). The most remarkable 
 thing in transferences is that the intermediate change is not 
 ordinarily manifested, almost all taking place in the organic 
 and inorganic world by means of potential transmission. 
 Thus the conversion of molar movement into heat, of this 
 into chemical action, of molecular phenomena into progenic 
 changes, and vice versd, need the intermediate action of progene. 
 There can only be a direct conversion when there is a trans- 
 ference of molecular change into molar movement, as occurs 
 in the transference of heat, or of the movements of physical 
 
 FIRST AND SE'COND CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 135 
 
 State or of chemical reaction into useful work or into dangerous 
 explosion. 
 
 In a final analysis all the changes of vitality, that is, all 
 functions of organic bodies, are reduced to the different kinds 
 of propagation of movement which have been comprehended 
 in Analytic Physiology. We must not forget that mental 
 activity must be separated from the synthetic concept of 
 vitality, in which there is only that which is properly organic. 
 
 Viewed from an etiological standpoint, vitality has a very 
 important natural condition, as it is the first effect or immediate 
 consequence of the True Cause of mechanical order in the 
 Cosmic System— that is to say, it is the first operation of the 
 sole causal law through which the direct purpose or immediate 
 aim of the Creator is effected. But Biology circumscribing 
 itself to the limits of material nature, vitality is the object of 
 our study only in the succession of potential and phenomenal 
 effects—/.^., in the functions of living bodies. 
 
 Second Conclusion.— ^Q admit the unity of substance and 
 activity in matter, but not atomic unity. To prove the 
 identity of matter, or substantial equality of all the objects 
 of nature, it is sufficient to know that we cannot perceive 
 in them more than differences in the relations of space and 
 time, as all sensations result from propagation of movement, 
 which can be but of one quality. Qualitative differences are 
 formed in the mind from such quantitative changes ; they are 
 not really objective, but subjective; therefore progene (the 
 ether of the physicists) must be considered in its natural 
 quality or essence as a substance identical with ponderable 
 matter, and all bodies, even those considered elemental in 
 Chemistry, must also be considered identical in their essential 
 
 quality. 
 
 We must not confound this idea of material unity with that 
 
 -%^; 
 
136 CONCLUSJOXS OF THIS PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORY. 
 
 asserted by atomists. We cannot admit atomic unity because, 
 among other reasons, the principles of thermo-dynamics are 
 sufficient proofs to convince us of the error of the atomic 
 hypothesis of progene, which must necessarily be distributed 
 into variable parcels. The atomic hypothesis assimilates 
 progene to the gaseous state, but this is completely contra- 
 dictory to fact, and insufficient to explain imponderable 
 changes. The difference between progene and atoms lies 
 only in the relation of condensation, the atom being an 
 invariable corpuscle of almost twice the condensation of 
 progene, as the calculations of propagated energy lead us 
 to infer by showing us a dissipation of 46% of manifested 
 or living energy, which, as we have seen, is a loss result- 
 ing from gravitation, an effect of the action of progene on 
 atoms. The condensation of matter in atoms must be equal 
 in all bodies, as such a ratio is invariable, the differences 
 between atoms then being in volume, and perhaps in shape. 
 Such an idea of substantial unity, though undoubtedly a 
 true one, according to mental analysis has not a practical 
 confirmation, for in the laboratory all bodies cannot be 
 reduced to one alone. 
 
 The realistic idea of chemical transformism pretends to be 
 based on the unity of matter ; but such a hypothesis, like all 
 those which try to explain the evolution of Cosmos, surpasses 
 the limits of positive knowledge. We must restrict ourselves 
 to the possibility of physiological succession, discovering always 
 and ievery where in nature effects alone; we can never explain 
 the True Cause nor investigate the primordial genesis of 
 Cosmos. Such inquiries belong to Metaphysics. With this 
 restriction of Physiology to calculate effects alone— />., to 
 establish the relative laws among the objects of Nature — we 
 will consider progene as the first material element of evolution 
 
 SECOND AND THIRD CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 137 
 
 in Cosmic Mechanism. The different forms of matter in the 
 constitution of Cosmos are shown in the following table :— 
 
 I Imponderable and distributed in variable 
 parcels Progene. 
 Ponderable and dis- Tp, .^ TMolecular . Gases, 
 tributed in invari-J ^'"'''^ \Hydrocular . Liquids, 
 able particles : ] <. .- ,^ /Asymmetrical . Amorphic solids, 
 atoms l^boiids | Symmetrical . Crystals. 
 
 
 Oi^anic 
 Matter.' 
 
 Total or complete : Primordial form or germ 
 
 Partial or incomplete : Derived forms 
 
 
 Ovules. 
 /'Blastema. 
 Protoplasm. 
 Cellules. 
 Fibres. 
 Tubes. 
 Membranes. 
 
 The progressive scale of evolution in matter is as follows : — 
 1st. Progene » Imponderable matter (ether of the physicists). 
 2nd. Protilo (helium ?) = Primary condensation (perfect 
 
 gsis ?). 
 3rd. Most permanent gases - Secondary condensation. 
 4th. Simple bodies that can take a liquid form (many 
 
 elements). 
 5th. Simple permanent solids « carbon. 
 
 Simple bodies 
 practically 
 irreducible. 
 
 Compound 
 bodies re- 
 ducible to 
 simple 
 bodies. 
 
 6th. Compounds without carbon. 
 
 7th. Ternary compounds of carbon = Hydrocarbonates. 
 8th. Quaternary compounds of carbon = Albuminoids. 
 9th. Protoplasm = Organic granular matter, 
 loth. Ovules = Unicellular organisms and germs of all 
 living bodies. 
 
 We cannot interpret this scale by the doctrine of infinitesimal 
 contmuity— the fundamental principle of transformism; we 
 must not suppose that because matter leaps infinitesimally, or 
 changes gradually from one form to another, such a change 
 can be made by matter alone without the intervention of a 
 
 Motor. 
 
 Third Conclusion,— ThQ so-called properties and forces of 
 matter, including gravitation, are simply the resultants of the 
 intermotion of progene with atoms. The ideas of the authors 
 about the mechanism of gravitation, chemical combination, 
 magnetism, and the other phenomena which they erroneously 
 
138 CONCLUSIONS OF THIS PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORY, 
 
 suppose as effects of enigmatic attractions and repulsions, are 
 a contradiction to the true facts of inertia, and therefore to 
 the principle of conservation. Attraction and repulsion denote 
 constant creation of mechanical power, so as to produce a 
 continuous source of movement ; but if such a power truly 
 existed, the cosmic principle should be one of generation 
 instead of conservation, and then matter would not be inert. 
 Material nature is inert in living as well as in inorganic 
 bodies, it being demonstrated by the facts of inertia of matter 
 that all objective activity is primarily or genesically produced 
 by an agent which must exist apart from matter itself. Hence, 
 the hypothesis of universal attraction is an irreflexive idea of 
 imagination-it is a fallacy of language ; and as it represents an 
 impossible force, it is still better to say it is the name of nothing, 
 and it is as absurd to apply it in Chemistry to invisible particles 
 as in Astronomy to great masses. It is furthermore unnecessary 
 for Science to admit abstract or causing forces in matter, because 
 we can explain all natural phenomena without admitting attrac- 
 tion among the planets, without the molecular forces of cohesion, 
 adhesion, etc., without chemical affinity, and finally, without any 
 vital force outside the Generator. Neither must we admit any 
 property considered as inherent to the material element, as 
 elasticity, extension and impenetrability, which are relative 
 conditions resulting from the intermotion of progene and 
 ponderable matter according to the mode of molecular aggre- 
 gation of bodies. It is therefore erroneous to pretend that 
 elasticity repairs the dissipation of living force in Cosmos. 
 
 The hypothesis of attraction must be substituted by the 
 rational theory of continuous impulsive movement which is 
 propagated by means of progene from molecule to molecule 
 as well as from star to star. Thus, in acts that at first sight or 
 to irreflexive observation appear to be far removed from a 
 
 THIRD AND FOURTH CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 139 
 
 possible interpretation, our reason discovers analogies with the 
 works seen in the most simple machine. 
 
 We have admitted throughout Cosmos the existence of a 
 meta-fluid substance which serves as a universal means, and 
 which must be recognised as a real object although it is neither 
 tangible nor ponderable. The existence of such an impon- 
 derable meta-fluid cannot be denied, because the interstellar 
 changes suppose transmissions of movement, and empty space 
 cannot move. Again, when the minute particles of a body 
 move in a change of temperature or of physical state, or in a 
 chemical metamorphosis, something must impel the particles, 
 as they cannot move of themselves alone ; this something must 
 be the substance we call progene, which is necessary in the 
 world to explain sonorous, luminous, thermic and electric 
 transmissions, and so directly impresses the eye and ear. 
 
 Accordingly, the reparation of living force in the w^orld is 
 produced by organic generation, being directly subordinate to 
 the Primordial Cause or Creator. All manifested changes are 
 proximate or remote effects of the generating power of vitality ; 
 the First Principle directly gives organic bodies their power of 
 collocation or redistribution of matter in the Universe. 
 
 Fourth Conclusion. — All physiological propositions and laws 
 are subordinate to the principle of conservation — that is, all 
 physiological changes are propagations of movement without 
 any new creation or annihilation. 
 
 Molar Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Cos- 
 mology, which altogether compose physiological knowledge, 
 contain only relative propositions and laws whose predicates 
 are quantitative. The attributive propositions which express 
 predicates of quality only give us a knowledge of the mental 
 states, and not of the material — being therefore metaphysical, 
 not physiological. 
 
 ^^i 
 
I40 CONCLUSIONS OF THIS PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORY. 
 
 All Cosmos is in movement, and the degree of movement 
 is distributed among all parts by propagation, changing either 
 instantaneously or continuously, so producing the different 
 energies of nature, which are classified in the following 
 table : — 
 
 I. Energies primordially derived^ or functions of organism : 
 Vital Synthesis. 
 
 I'Progenic change: potential transmissions \ _ 
 Invisible I (like electricity) j" Innervation, 
 
 movements'! Molecular chan;;e : thermo-chemical pheno- K^ . . 
 
 I mena jNutrition. 
 
 FOURTH CONCLUSION. 
 
 141 
 
 Visible /Complete division : cellular excision 
 movements ( Return movement in cellular elements . 
 
 . Reproduction. 
 . Contraction. 
 
 2. Energies secondarily derived^ or changes of the inorganic 
 world. 
 
 Progenic 
 
 or 
 imf)on- 
 derabJe 
 
 energies 
 
 fOuantitative change oH Electricity 
 Potential I ^ \ . ^ 
 
 \ 
 
 progene 
 
 / (static and dynamic). 
 
 changes "1 Change of progenic oscil- \ Potential heat 
 
 lations j (latent and radiant). 
 
 TTranslatory movement oH - . , 
 
 Manifested I _ progene ji->gnt- 
 ch 
 
 anges | Oscillatory movement of\_ 
 
 l progene j Sound. 
 
 I r Change of intermolecularl Heat 
 
 Molecular I distances ] (temperature and state), 
 
 changes j Change of molecular ex- ^Affinity 
 I tension / (chemical change). 
 
 Molar changes : Visible or ordinary movements. 
 
 The interstitial parcels of progene are constantly in oscilla- 
 tory revolution, which may produce in molecules repulsive or 
 expansive effects (heat); at the same time such parcels are 
 under the pressure of ultra-atmospheric progene, which pro- 
 duces a force, centripetally propagated, in proportion to the 
 mass and the square root of the distance, so producing in 
 corpuscles and bodies an apparent effect of attraction (gravity). 
 From two such antagonistic movements the different forces 
 
 called attraction and repulsion result ; all authors, for instance, 
 saying " force of cohesion " when they refer to the union of 
 homogeneous corpuscles, and " force of affinity " when they 
 refer to the combination in definite proportions of those 
 which are heterogeneous. 
 
 Chemical changes are primarily effected in the acts of 
 organic collocation, currents of progene being simultaneously 
 produced with them. From this perturbation all natural 
 phenomena, and the potential changes of living as well as 
 of inorganic bodies, are derived. Thus, for instance, the 
 propagation of oscillatory movement to the interstitial progene 
 of a body increases the force whose effects appear to be the 
 result of molecular repulsion, and then we may have either 
 increase of temperature or change of state, and even chemical 
 decomposition may take place. But for this a potential 
 change, consisting in progenic currents, must necessarily 
 co-exist ; and these may become phenomenal either by trans- 
 ference into ver>' minute and accelerated emissions of progene, 
 which, irradiating to the retina, may produce the sensation of 
 light, or by transference into less minute and less accelerated 
 osdllations of progene, which, propagated to the ear, may pro- 
 duce the sensation of sound. Again, all forms of invisible 
 movement, but especially heat, are transferred into molecular 
 work, either in animal economy or in machinery ; and finally, 
 if we suppose a change in gravitating pressure, it will produce 
 phenomena having the appearance of attraction contrar)' to 
 those before mentioned. Among these the principal are 
 chemical combinations, terrestrial movements, terrestrial mag" 
 netism, and gravity. In the last the periodical increase and 
 diminution (alternating every six hours) is very remarkable ; 
 and this, like the other planetary phenomena, depends on 
 the diurnal and nocturnal changes of organisms. 
 
 «a 
 
142 CONCLUSIONS OF THIS PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORY, 
 
 Fifth Condusion.—We proclaim Monotheism in science, 
 admitting the causal unity of the Universe and rejecting all 
 abstract or causing forces in Nature. 
 
 Mechanism is nothing really independent ; it is the concept 
 of an abstraction from objective or material nature, making 
 the elision of the Primordial Cause. We cannot explain the 
 creation of matter, nor the primordial determination or genera- 
 tion of manifested or living change in organism ; but we may 
 refer to the subject of vitality, and say that it is a supreme 
 power, and not a transference from mechanical energy, because 
 this does not suppose anything more than matter in move- 
 ment under the different forms of secondary activity. The 
 proofs of this assertion are the impossibility of affirming the 
 contrary, and the principle of conservation. 
 
 The uniformity in the order of the Universe compels us 
 to admit that it is an organised system, for which we must 
 recognise an Organiser whose power is not directly mani- 
 fested in any form of matter but organisms. Hence, God as 
 Organiser is the principle of vitality— that is to say, vitality 
 must be considered as the only activity really originated, and 
 such primordially derived unity is the proximate cause of 
 phenomenal motion in Cosmos. This idea must substitute 
 that host of abstract forces admitted by authors as exciting 
 the world to action. 
 
 Physico-chemical forces are only the result of movements ; 
 they are not causes, and still less can they have the conditions 
 of intelligence necessary to accomplish the determined prin- 
 ciple and final aim of the System. 
 
 The prime influence which governs living bodies is a 
 perpetual miracle, which we can only know by the continuous 
 effects it originates in organism— first in imponderable material 
 or progene, and secondly in the continued transference of 
 
 FIFTH AND LAST CONCLUSION. 143 
 
 ponderable matter in and among different bodies. In Nature 
 there will always remain an eternal mystery to us : this is the 
 continual creation of phenomenal activity in organism, which 
 is revealed to us under two forms — generation of new beings 
 or multiplication, and growth or development of living beings. 
 The other changes of Nature exist in a continuous succession, 
 keeping reciprocal equivalence among themselves. 
 
 What has been said is sufficient to make known to us the 
 solution here given to the knowledge of Nature ; and in 
 recapitulation we will say that the perfection of physiological 
 acquisitions is the result of calculation, and scientific progress 
 will advance with the mathematical exactness of the relations 
 formed among phenomena, experience being the means of 
 gathering the irreflexive ideas of particular facts; and true 
 knowledge is acquired when reason can apply to every single 
 case the principle of conservation, in which we find the 
 mechanical unity of Cosmos, which is supernatural or 
 immaterial. 
 
 Our reason has conducted us at the close to three ultimate 
 terms : one material, unconscious, which is only perceived 
 extrinsically by propagations to the senses, differing according 
 to the relations of space and time ; another mental, conscious, 
 which is only perceived intrinsically, and without any other 
 relation in its acts than that of time ; and still another con- 
 taining the capacity of both (material and mental), but not 
 being subject or object of perception for human intelligence. 
 The inevitable desire of thoughtful minds has been to make 
 the synthesis of these three terms in order to determine the 
 absolute unity of the System. Such a synthesis cannot be 
 made by Physiology in general, still less by any of its depart- 
 ments. The divine must not be confounded with the human, 
 
144 CONCLUSIONS OF THIS PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORY. 
 
 nor the spiritual with the material ; the unity of the Universe 
 can only be found in the plan and final aim of the Creator, 
 therefore it is a theological problem. 
 
 The circuit in the changes of the Cosmic System, then, is 
 closed not by mechanical propagation, but by the engendering 
 activity of the Creator, who immediately produces the change 
 of latent energy into living force ; this is first manifested by 
 the functions of living matter, which afterwards propagates 
 the action to the inorganic world where the manifested 
 energ)' is dissipated, until it is newly manifested by the 
 Supernatural Potence in Vitality. 
 
 r> < 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORY. 
 
 LOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DATA. 
 
 I. Province and Division of Universal Physiology 
 II. Principal Cause of Doctrinal Errors 
 
 III. Objective or Cosmic Perceptions 
 
 IV. How Physiological Knowledge is acquired . 
 V. Proof of Physiological Data .... 
 
 VI. Conservation of Energy in Cosmic Mechanism 
 
 PACK 
 
 ill 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 >3 
 
 15 
 
 17 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 PRINCIPLES OF GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 VII. Matter in General 
 VIII. Ponderable Matter (Atoms) 
 IX. Imponderable Matter (Progene) 
 X. Constitution of Bodies 
 XI. Inertia of Matter 
 XII. Generation of Phenomena: Cause of the System 
 
 23 
 
 28 
 
 32 
 36 
 39 
 42 
 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 PRINCIPLES OF SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 XIII. Province and Division of Special Physiology 
 
 XIV. Molar Physics; Visible Movements and Equili- 
 
 brium OF Bodies 
 
 lO 
 
 49 
 S3 
 
146 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 HAP. 
 
 XV. Molecular Physics: Heat and Chemical Changes . 
 
 XVI. Proc.enic Physics in General 
 
 XVII. Prooenic Phenomena: Sound and Light . 
 XVIII. Pro<;enic Potence. or Potential Physics: Elec- 
 tricity and Latent Heat 
 
 PAGE 
 
 65 
 
 69 
 
 77 
 
 r 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF ABSTRACT BIOLOGY. 
 
 XIX. Concept and Division of Synthetic Physiology . 85 
 
 XX. Principles of Descriptive Biology: Micrography . 92 
 
 XXI. Principles of Genesic Biology: Microgeny . 98 
 
 PART FOURTH. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF ABSTRACT COSMOLOGY. 
 
 XXII. Principles OF Descrhtive Cosmology : Cosmography 109 
 XXHI. Principles of Gknfsic Cosmology: Cosmogeny, — 
 
 A. General Idea of Involution of Cosmos . .116 
 XXIV. Cosmogeny (i\?w//////fc'</), A\ Circulation OF PROGENE 122 
 
 XXV. CONCLUSIONS 01 
 TIILORV 
 
 THIS PHYSIOLOGICAL 
 
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