54 Ou the Vitality of Matter. 
Art. VI.—On the Vitality of Matter. 
(Communicated for this Journal.) 
Tue mystery of life, or the cause of sensation and volunta- 
ty motion, has been a subject of the deepest interest in all 
ages of the world. The curious and the learned have insti- 
tuted the most diligent inquiries to discover whether the hid- 
den principle is an emanation from the divinity, or a super- 
natural gift; or whether it resides in the organized structure, 
by some particular disposition and consent of parts; or 
whether each particle possesses inherent powers of life in its 
separate state, and thus spontaneously amons: from decaying 
orms to en, in new scenes of activity. 
Within a ious from some investigations with the mi- 
croscope, a th : which maintains that this mys- 
terious principle is inherent i in the et forms of mat- 
ter, and that they assume new s s, and revive in their 
primitive activity, whenever death ad es their as 
‘These doctrines, adopted in their full extent, eaters: the 
dogmas of the metempsychosis, and the chances of Demoe- 
ritus, and, by vulgar induction, end in atheism. Without 
the dignity of that system of which Epicurus, Lucretius 
Pliny and Lucian were disciples, they fall into the matoriniaie 
of Leibnitz, who considers “ each monad or atom — 
of perception and appetite. This appetency produces 
ternal principle of alteration—hence abe sympathies at af. 
finities, the combinations and the of bodies.” 
he Epicurean theory, although it deaonad matter eternal 
and insensate, and that its particles, by jostling forever, had 
at length adhered in masses, ultimately forming the world 
inhabited by animals, and clothed with Pe ; 
vet, it peesht that it was operated upon by an immaterial 
oe! ~~ was imparted by a divine invisible pow- 
> 
er, who tu 
In near times, "Sir Isaac N tee built a noble superstruc- 
ture upon the p b assert a osaic account of the 
creation—that all things we tite by an omnipotent, im- 
material, intelligent being; thet he established those immu- 
laws by which the universe is regulated and governed ; 
that he imparted animation to creatures by bestowing 
upon them the breath of life, 
~ ee . M. Edwards, an English physician in Paris, and 
Dumas, Dutrochet, Prevost and others, have ascertained to 
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