117 



up and maintaining of one structure; and the comprehensiveness appears 

 in the endless variety of the distribution and subordination of the same 

 elements, when they are converted in countless different forms to make 

 up the parts and members of one body. Nor is it less evident that it 

 acts extensively, as well as intensively, that it pervades the cedar of 

 Lebanon as well as the hyssop that gi'ows from the wall, and the 

 elephant as the mite. 



6. The production and re-production of plants and animals implies 

 an original and continual creation. Elementary atoms could not 

 organize themselves without a previous concert, and an assignment to 

 each of its proper position in the structure to be formed ; for this they 

 have neither intelligence nor intrinsic tendencies, and therefore they 

 must be arranged and disposed from an extrinsic source of sufficient 

 intelligence and power. In re-production, the vital power has an 

 incipient transmission from progenitor to progeny, but without sub- 

 duction, and, therefore, what is required for the sustenance and develop- 

 ment of the offspring must be supplied from the original creative source. 

 The life and power of the present generation has not been subtracted 

 from the past : to a great extent it existed simultaneously with it, nor is 

 it certain that all present organic existence is entirely owing to pro- 

 creation, and not to creation. 



7. It is not the same power that organizes, animates, and under- 

 stands. To form a limb or a nerve is one thing: to feel by it is another; 

 and to direct it, by volition, is another. The functions are distinct, the 

 powers are distinct. A plant has a power to organize it ; it has not the 

 power to feel. An oyster may have both, but it does not understand. 

 In ourselves, we have direct consciousness, that the power that uses our 

 hmbs does not animate them, and did not form them, nor does it sus- 

 tain them. 



8. Yet, the organs that are actuated, and the power that actuates 

 them, have essential affections in common. The palpable properties of 

 body are not its essence : it may lose all those properties that are not 

 power, without losing aught of its essence. Body, considered as essen- 

 tial power, has ultimately affections in common with other essential 

 powers, vital, instinctive, mental, — and, where they come in contact with 

 common properties, they act and re-act on one another. There is 

 nothing, therefore, more abstruse in the ability to move the hand, than 

 in the power of the wind to move the sail. 



9. The certainty of our future existence depends upon a mental law 

 of casualty, a law of understanding tliat requires an efficient and final 

 cause for everything that begins to be ; consequently, the distinct mental 



