Material cause

“ And when decay or tire shall once more consign them to the earth, or to the atmosphere, the same Elements will enter on some further department, of their perpetual ministration, in the economy of the material world. ”

“ But you comprehend the result—man's complete triumph over disease by this process of dissolution aad rehabilitation. The foundation was my ancestor’s discovery that every substance—iron, gold, or any metal, flesh, bone, gristle, etc.,—may be dissolved by some chemical or combination of chemicals, and his inference was that a universal solvent might by their combination, be discovered. ”

“ Here, then, is another contradiction to the material, and therefore another expression for the trivial: matter, as against vacancy or the privation of matter, yields the antithesis of material or immaterial, substantial and unsubstantial; matter, as against form, yields the antithesis of substance and shape, or otherwise of material and modal—what is matter and what is the mere modification of matter, its variation by means of ornament or shape. ”

“ A cause which continues in action must on a strict analysis be considered as a number of causes exactly similar, successively introduced, and producing by their combination the sum of the effects which they would severally produce if they acted singly. The progressive rusting of the iron is in strictness the sum of the effects of many particles of air acting in succession upon corresponding particles of iron. ”

“ So in our programme of creation, mark How 'tis that, though the bodies of all stuff Are solid to the core, we yet explain The ways whereby some things are fashioned soft— Air, water, earth, and fiery exhalations— And by what force they function and go on: The fact is founded in the void of things. But if the primal germs themselves be soft, Reason cannot be brought to bear to show The ways whereby may be created these Great crags of basalt and the during iron; For their whole nature will profoundly lack The first foundations of a solid frame. ”

“ The material is presented, not as a finished subject, but as a growing one, with which the present generation of chemists is still busy, and which contains many important, unsolved problems of a fundamental character. ”

“ In the first place, it requires us to believe that the extraordinary combination of material conditions required for organic43 life is due to hazard. In the second place, it has to admit that these material conditions are insufficient, and have somehow to be supplemented. ”

“ Elementary matter is transformed into chemical and organic compounds, by natural forces, upon the cessation of which, it is liberated by nature's great destroyer, and re-appears in the world of elements. ”

“ Now when these substances are brought into contact with the tissues in any way, they do not combine with them; they do not arrest their progress to decomposition. As far, therefore, as these instances go, it appears that when the effect is absent, it is by reason of the absence of that antecedent which we had already good ground for considering as the proximate cause. ”

“ Now when the cause of physico-chemical versus vital agencies comes to be tried, not in the laboratory but in the study, not by science but by philosophy, the first question that will be asked is, What, then, is your distinction between ‘vital’ and ‘physico-chemical’ energies? ”

“ Given, then, a perfect type, the unfavorable action of these elements—heat and cold, dampness and dryness, light and electricity, disuse, disease, absence of some of the necessary chemical elements, and insufficient supplies of food—together with that of their countless modifications, acting separately and conjointly, directly and indirectly through correlation, is amply adequate to the production of the modifications by which, as we conceive, races have been formed. ”

“ By the processes of art and manufacture, by the operation of those powers on which organisation and life depend, solid matter is constantly poured off in such a state that it cannot be detected, as matter, by any of the human senses. Yet a thousand results, daily and hourly accumulating as truths around us, prove that the solid metals, the gross earths, and the constituents of animal and vegetable life, all pass away invisible to us, and become “thin air.” ”

“ Would it be possible to regard ourselves as accidentally thrust into this corner of the mechanical universal arrangement?—That all chemical philosophy is likewise an exception and an accident in the world’s economy, and finally that organic life is a mere exception and accident in the chemical world? ”

“ It has been said that classification is the basis of all science, and it most certainly is the basis of the scientific disposal of refuse. Refuse matter is most varied in its [85] nature, and the items of which it is composed—excrement, rags, bones, paper, straw, sawdust, and other packing materials, cinders and ashes, old crockery, broken glass, old metal, &c.—all demand a different method of treatment. ”

“ And the elements of human nature are unchanging—like the elements of chemistry; and they combine in the same unchanging fashions. Imagine a reconstructed universe without sulphur or nitrogen; or imagine elements that combine to one purpose in this corner of the laboratory combining to another purpose in that. ”

“ In perfect strictness, it is true that chemical investigation can tell us little or nothing, directly, of the composition of living matter, inasmuch as such matter must needs die in the act of analysis,—and upon this very obvious ground, objections, which I confess seem to me to be somewhat frivolous, have been raised to the drawing of any conclusions whatever respecting the composition of actually living matter, from that of the dead matter of life, which alone is accessible to us. ”

“ It is difficult to believe, at any rate where physical laws are concerned, that the earlier part of the process which is the cause can make any difference to the effect, so long as the later part of the process which is the cause remains unchanged. Suppose, for example, that a man dies of arsenic poisoning, we say that his taking arsenic was the cause of death. ”

“ Are we to ascribe to the operation of a fluid or fluids, and if so, in what manner, the facts of heat, magnetism, electricity, galvanism? What are the forces by which the elements of chemical compounds are held together? What are the forces, of a higher order, as we cannot help believing, by which the course of vital action in organized bodies is kept up? In these and other cases, we have extensive departments of science; but we are as yet unable to trace the effects to their causes; and our science, so far as it is positive and certain, consists entirely of the laws of phenomena. ”

“ I said, “that some chemical substances are of such a nature that when brought into contact, they immediately lay hold of one another, so to speak. They unite together ultimately, and form a substance entirely different from either of the original. ”

“ When a chemical body breaks up into its elements, these elements are the products of its disintegration, but it is not permissible on that account to describe elements as entirely products of disintegration. ”

“ Looking at the wonderful changes produced in substances by the action of chemical force, the question arose, What happens when a body undergoes chemical change?—and, as burning or combustion was perhaps the commonest of all chemical changes, the question became narrowed, and chemists eagerly sought for an answer to the query, "What happens when a chemical substance burns?" ”

“ But we may have a substance, or system, in which the force at work is not gravity, but chemical affinity, and the substance, or system, may, under certain peculiar conditions, become chemically unstable. ”

“ The idea of the material substance is a highly complex idea, comprising the notion of many independent properties, introduced to us through several of our senses: such as solidity, crystalline form, transparency, coldness, smoothness, whiteness, &c.; the quality of fusion by heat is only one among many of the ingredients composing the conception ”

“ The worker in metal, the painter, the dyer, the vintner, the brewer, all the artisans in short who deal with practical chemistry, are able to teach the speculative chemist that it is an utter mistake to expect that the qualities of the elements shall be still discoverable, in an unaltered form, in the compound. This first rude notion of an element, that it determines the properties of bodies by resemblance, must be utterly rejected and abandoned before we can make any advance towards a true apprehension of the constitution of bodies. ”

“ If we examine the extraordinary display of combination or composition of some of the elements—especially those that enter into the composition of organic substances—we shall find how few of these elements are essential for the production of life, and its maintenance; and we shall be surprised to find what force or power, and phenomena, they are capable of producing. ”

“ The metals, together with the fluid, are the body; the chemical action, as the basis of the whole effect, is the will, and the electric current resulting from it, which produces shock and spark, is the intellect. ”

“ But does the work of the vital power in the material organs warrant your conclusion that the soul needs to be supported by a material substratum? Quite the contrary. For, what needs a material substratum is an accident, and no accident is active; and therefore the vital power, whose activity is manifested in the material organs, is no accident, and therefore needs no material substratum, and, while existing in the material organs, exists no less in itself. ”

“ These properties are further causes of instability, inasmuch as they expose the organic substances to a number of disturbing influences. Thus, organic matter is not only subject to decomposition by light and heat, but also by the direct or indirect chemical action of bodies entering it, or acting on it from without. ”

“ But verily man, by reason of the continued wickedness of his Life, being made uncapable of this high Art and Science, is compelled to get out Metals from the Earths bowels, in the sweat of his brows, and to pass over his life in cares and labours. ”

“ Innumerable characteristics might have been developed which for us,—from our limited point of view in time and space, defy observation. The transformation of a chemical quality may perhaps now be taking place, but so slowly that it escapes our most delicate calculations. ”

“ For is it an indisputable fact, that a chemical process is every instant carrying on in the deep centre of our corporeal frame, over which process we have no control, and which can only be accounted for by referring it to the agency of some power above ourselves? ”

“ But when these appetencies and propensities of the parts of organic matter to unite with each other cease, the chemical affinities of attraction and the aptitude to be attracted, and of repulsion and the aptitude to be repelled, succeed, and reduce much of the solid matters back to the condition of elements ”

“ We have thus learned two things, for, in the first place, we have learned that life is associated with delicacy of construction, and in the next (Art. 220) , that delicacy of construction implies an unstable arrangement of natural forces. We have now to remark that the particular force which is thus used by living beings is chemical affinity. Our bodies are, in truth, examples of an unstable arrangement of chemical forces, and the materials which composed them, if not liable to sudden explosion, like fulminating powder, are yet preeminently the subjects of decay. ”

“ In this booklet we shall attempt to give an account, in chemical terms, of the materials from which living matter is made and of some of the chemical reactions that underlie the manifestations and the maintenance of life. ”

“ Neither, again, after physical science had attained a certain development, could there be any real doubt where to look for the laws on which the phenomena of life depend, since they must be the mechanical and chemical laws of the solid and fluid substances composing the organized body and the medium in which it subsists, together with the peculiar vital laws of the different tissues constituting the organic structure. ”

“ Man has learned not only the action of substances upon each other, such as bleaching solution upon coloring matter, washing soda upon grease, acids upon bases, but also the effect which certain chemicals have upon the human body. ”

“ It was only when elementary substances were divided into Natural Classes, of which classes Metals were one, that a true view of their distinctive characters was obtained. Definitions in the outset of our examination of nature are almost always, not only useless, but prejudicial. ”

“ In determining the property of an agent and the chemical changes that affect it, the ancients have ascertained which of the five constituent elements — ether, wind, fire, water, and earth — is predominant in its formation. ”

“ As we have seen, this is so that the requisite fundamental materials may be spent by each element in suitable proportions,—water, chemical compounds, air, and heat,—that organs may be added to organs, and that apparatus may be set to work in complex structures. ”

“ The force of truth, dependent upon observation, is irresistible. A great many substances have been discovered amongst organic bodies, composed of the same elements in the same relative proportions, and yet exhibiting physical and chemical properties perfectly distinct one from another. ”

“ I say “more spiritual creeds,” for the spiritualizing of what was once contemptuously called dead, inorganic matter is being steadily prosecuted by every man of science to-day, whether he be electrician, biologist, or chemist. ”

“ I have rendered paper, bread, wool, silk, stones, leather, glass, wood, men, and dogs—in short, every thing I touched, magnetic to such a degree, that these substances produced the same effects as the loadstone on diseased persons. ”