Ixxii REPORT — 1856. 



latest of the many epochs which the earth has gone through — and that with 

 regard to the future, the most durable monuments we can raise to hand 

 down our names to posterity are liable at any time to be overthrown by an 

 earthquake, and would be obliterated, as if they had never been, by any of 

 those processes of raetamorphic action which geology tells us form a part of 

 the cycle of changes which the globe is destined to undergo, — the more lost 

 in wouder we may be at the vast fecundity of Nature, which within so narrow 

 a sphere can crowd together phaenomena so various and so imposing, the 

 more sensible shall we become of the small proportion, which our highest 

 powers and their iiappiest results bear, not only to the Cause of all causation, 

 but even to other created beings, higher in the scale than ourselves, which 

 we may conceive to exist. 



" Think thou this world of hopes and fears 



Could find no statelier than his peers 



In yonder hundred million spheres ? " 



It is believed, that every one of the molecules which make up the mass of 

 a compound body is an aggregate of a number of atoms, which, by their 

 arrangement and mutual relation, impart to the whole its peculiar properties ; 

 and, according to another speculation which has been already alluded to, 

 these atoms are not absolutely motionless, but are ever shifting their position 

 within certain limits, so as to induce corresponding changes in the properties 

 of the mass. 



Indeed it has been imagined, that the production of different compounds 

 from the same elements united in the same proportions, may be one of the 

 consequences resulting from the different arrangement of particles thereby 

 induced. 



If this hypothesis have any foundation in fact, what an example does it 

 set before us of great effects brought about by movements which, to our 

 senses, are too minute to be appreciable : and what an illustration does it 

 afford us of the limited powers inherent in the human race, which are never- 

 theless capable of bringing about effects so varied, and to us so important ; 

 although, as compared with the universe, so insignificant ! 



We also are atoms, chained down to the little globe in which our lot is 

 cast; allowed a small field of action, and confined within definite limits, both 

 as to space and as to time. 



We, too, can only bring about such changes in nature, as are the resultants 

 of those few laws which it lies within the compass of our powers to investigate 

 and to take advantage of. 



We, too, can only run through a certain round of operations, as limited in 

 their extent, in comparison with those which lie within the bountis of our 

 conception, as the movements of the atoms, which serve to make up a com- 

 pound molecule of any of the substances around us, are to the revolutions of 

 the heavenly Luminaries. 



And as, according to Professor Owen, the conceivable modifications of 

 the vertebral archetj'pe are very far from being exhausted by any of the 

 forms which now inhabit tiie earth, or that are known to have exi.-ted here 

 at any former period ; so likewise the properties of matter with which we are 

 permitted to become cognizant, may form but a small portion of those of 

 which it is susceptible, or with which the Creator may have endowed it in 

 other portions of the Universe. 



We are told, that in a future and a higher state of existence, the chief 

 occupation of the blessed is that of praising and worshiping the Almighty. 

 But is not the contemplation of the works of the Creator, and the study of 

 the ordinances of the Great Lawgiver of the universe, in itself an act of 



