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of which fossils are destitute, we must own our com- 

 plete ignorance. We know it, as we know its om- 

 nipotent Author, by its effects. The effects of this 

 vital energy are continually going on in every or- 

 ganized body, from our own elaborate frame to the 

 humblest moss or fungus. Those different fluids, 

 so fine and transparent, separated from each other 

 by membranes as fine, which compose the eye, — all 

 retain their proper situations (though each indivi- 

 dually perpetually removed and renewed,) for sixty, 

 eighty, or a hundred years, or more, while life re- 

 mains. So do the infinitely small vessels of an al- 

 most invisible insect, the fine and pellucid tubes of 

 a plant, — all hold their destined fluids, conveying or 

 changing them according to fixed laws, but never 

 letting them run into confusion so long as the vital 

 principle animates their various forms. But no 

 sooner does death happen, than, without any alter- 

 ation of structure, any apparent change in their 

 material configuration, all is reversed. The eye 

 loses its form and brightness, its membranes let go 

 their contents, which mix in confusion, and yield to 

 the laws of chemistry alone. Just so it happens, 

 sooner or later, to the other parts of the animal as 

 well as vegetable frame : — chemical changes, putre- 

 faction, and destruction immediately follow the total 

 loss of life ; the importance of which becomes in- 

 stantly evident when it is no more. I humbly con- 

 ceive therefore, that if the human understanding 

 can in any case flatter itself with obtaining (in the 

 natural world) anything like a glimpse of the imme- 

 diate agency of the Deity, it is in the contemplation 



