On the Vitality of Matter. 59 
material agency, can separate them, or destroy that life; and 
there appears no other alternative but to presume it to be still 
" 
. 
8 
But our later philosophers are not as courteous as Pytha- 
geras and Ovid, nor as pious as Plato and Epicurus. ‘They 
make us descend to the most degraded state, and from the 
decomposing remains of our animal nature they see clouds 
of loathsome insect i i i 
changed into seraphs, fairies, and heroes ; trees, flowers, and 
fountains: or with the latter, that the gift of life was be- 
leaving its transitory abode in this wor 
n assuming that “life and matter are coexistent,” identi- 
fied, indivisible, and eternal, it is ro aeonty “that it is 
erpetually living, dying, reviving, recombining in new 
SMapek ant duces of. atten If so, then is not the boast 
of the atheist established, and accountability and moral ob- 
ligation destroyed ? . 
Based upon this hypothesis is the theory of the Gordius 
Aquaticus, or horse hair snake ; and as this is the boldest ex- 
ample, in illustration of this system of physiology, it is select- 
ed as a test for the ion 
* Pythagoras, + Ovid. # Mason Good. 
go 
