discovery of gas he is referring. Van Helmont plainly affirms "that the
arterial spirit of our life is of the nature of a gas;" and in the same
chapter (on the fiction of elementary complexions and mixtures) says,
"Seeing that the spirit of our life, since it is a gas, is most mightily
and swiftly affected by any other gas," etc. He repeats the same dogma in
his treatise on "Long Life," and indeed very generally throughout his
writings, observing, in his chapter on the Vital Air, that the spirit of
life is a salt, sharp vapour, made of the arterial blood, etc. Liebig,
therefore, in confuting some modern notions as to the nature of contagion
by miasma, is leading their reasonings back to that assumption in the
Brawn of physiological science by which the discoverer of gas exalted into
the principle of life the substance to which he first gave the name, now
so familiarly known. It is nevertheless just to Van Helmont to add that
his conception of the vital principle was very far from being as purely
materialistic as it would seem to those unacquainted with his writings;
for he carefully distinguishes that principle of life which he ascribes to
a gas, and by which he means the sensuous animal life, from the
intellectual immortal principle of soul. Van Helmont, indeed, was a
sincere believer of Divine Revelation. "The Lord Jesus is the way, the
truth, and the life," says with earnest humility this daring genius, in
that noble chapter "On the completing of the mind by the 'prayer of
silence,' and the loving offering tip of the heart, soul, and strength to
the obedience of the Divine will," from which some of the most eloquent of
recent philosophers, arguing against materialism, have borrowed largely in
support and in ornament of their lofty cause.