-1859] WHITINGS OP JOSEPH HENRY. 129 



body. We are thus constantly renewed and constantly con- 

 sumed, and in this consumption and renewal consists animal 

 life. When the proper balance between these two processes 

 is destroyed the derangement and death of the body ensue. 

 The rational, directing, thinking, willing soul, analogous 

 to that Divine intelligence manifested in all the works of 

 Nature, dissolves its connection with matter, and finds in 

 another, and perhaps successive conditions, an immortal 

 existence. 



In this great perpetual circle of change nothing is lost. 

 The earthy matter absorbed by the roots of the plant is 

 given back to the earth in the ejectments and decay of the 

 animal body ; the carbon, the hydrogen, the nitrogen, are 

 returned to the air whence they were drawn; the solar im- 

 pulses by which all the transformations were effected, are 

 restored unaltered in quantity to the celestial space; and in 

 the case of man, the soul, fraught with the moral effects of 

 its connection with matter, returns to its Divine Creator, the 

 source of all power, moral, intellectual, and physical. 



Mechanical Energy. 



The last remarks will lead us naturally to the subject of 

 mechanical energy and the correlation of physical forces, a 

 comparatively new class of ideas, which is at present occupy- 

 ing the attention of some of the first men of Europe and this 

 country. Indeed, one reason which has induced us to adopt 

 the atomic theory in this essay is, that we might give the 

 clearest and simplest view of these new and interesting ideas, 

 as well as some of the deductions which have been made 

 from them. The fact has been long conclusively established 

 in the minds of scientific men, that matter cannot be anni- 

 hilated, except by the almighty fiat of Him who called it 

 into existence; and the idea has been latel}' adopted, that 

 the natural forces associated with matter, namely, the attrac- 

 tions and repulsions, are also as indestructible as the matter 

 itself; moreover, the tendency of scientific speculation at the 

 present day is to the conclusion that all energ}', as it is 

 called, or that which produces the changes in the material 



