192 EULOGY OX AKTIIUR AUGUSTE DE LA RIVE. 



importance of those investigations and discoveries which had once been 

 despised. 



Again, a new conception of the nniverse, based upon the existence of 

 atoms, the latest representatives of matter, and upon the vibrations of 

 the ethereal medium, the latest symbols of force, induced a certain 

 school to revive doctrines which, originating in Greece, were translated 

 by Lucretius into harmonious verse in order to convert the voluptuous 

 aristocracy of Eometo the philosophy of Epicurus. The Latin poet ex- 

 claims in his antique materialism, " He wakes not again who sleeps 

 with the dead ; we are only the temporary i)roprietors of life and not its 

 owners. When the body perishes, the soul also is decomposed ; it dis- 

 solves as the limbs crumble into dust. The soul dies entirely' with the 

 body, and in vain might the earth be mingled with the sea, and the sea 

 with the sky, in one frightful tumult — nothing can ever awaken it.*' 



Modern materialism, content with reviving the doctrines of Epicurus 

 and Lucretius, considers the world as the fortuitous production of the 

 arrangement of atoms ; man as the highest development of the natural 

 evolution of organic forms ; life as a spontaneous modification of force ; 

 birth as the commencement of a phenomenon, death as its end. When, 

 in the light of this philosophy, justice is only a social convention, con- 

 science the fruit of education ; charity, friendship, love, only varied 

 forms of selfishness, those intrusted with the care of human souls should 

 acknowledge the terrible power of this contemned science. 



The scientific conceptions of the human mind, of great importance as 

 expressions of generalizations, are the result of ideas derived from our 

 present understanding of the phenomena of matter and force, but cannot 

 be considered as absolute truths. Lavoisier, studying chemical actions, 

 the balance in hand, i)roved, it is true, that in each of these, the weight of 

 the substances produced is equal to that of the substances employed. Let 

 us accept, then, this discovery as a philosophical truth : that matter has 

 weight; that man has never created nor destroyed anything that has 

 weight ; in nature, since the universe received its present form, noth- 

 ing has been lost, nothing created that has weight; matter changes its 

 place, its aspect, and condition, but it does not perish. Is it the same in 

 regard to force! While always remaining imponderable, will it also be 

 variable in its manifestations, perpetual in its activity ? Man powerless 

 to create matter, is he equally unable to i)roduce force ? Auguste De La 

 Rive has largely assisted in proving that this is the case, and, in so doing, 

 has traced to its highest philosophical consequences one of the most hum- 

 ble experiments of the laboratory, that of Galvani. Two plates, one of 

 zinc the other of copper, produce a sensation when an organ is touched 

 with their two free extremities ; the tongue is sensible of a taste ; the eye 

 perceives a light ; the ear is conscious of sound. By increasing the 

 number of these metallic couples, extending their surface, and plunging 

 them into a saline or acid litpiid, Yolta constructed his celebrateil bat- 

 tery, by which he produced light and heat comparable with those of the 



