134 Rev. P. Keith on the Conditions of Life. 



diminutive; and the fruit palpably degenerate, both in quantity 

 and quality. The terminal branches fade the first, then the 

 larger branches, and then the trunk and root. The vital 

 energy of the fabric languishes, and is at last totally extin- 

 guished; and the plant, now exposed to the chemical action 

 of surrounding substances which it cannot any longer resist, 

 withers and dies away, presenting to the eye a decayed and 

 rotten appearance, and crumbling into the dust from which it 

 originally sprang. — Observe its progress in the animal, and 

 you will find that the symptoms are of a similar character. 

 It has been said indeed of man, that it is the body only, and 

 not the mind, that suffers decay and death. But it is evident 

 that the mind is liable to decay and to death as well as the 

 body. If the organ perishes, its function must inevitably 

 perish. If the brain dies, its function — mind — must cease. As 

 well might you expect that digestion should continue when 

 life has left the stomach, as that mind should continue when 

 life has left the brain. If the eye becomes dim, and the ear 

 dull of hearing, and the palate incapable of tasting, and the 

 nostril devoid of smell ; so the memory becomes weak, the 

 judgement erroneous, the understanding embarrassed, the will 

 slow in its decisions, and the organs that are subject to it slow 

 in their obedience; inducing "second childishness and mere 

 oblivion;" and exhibiting man in his state of dotage "sans 

 mouth, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans every thing." It is but a 

 step further to the total extinction of life, and cessation of all 

 living function ; that is, in other words, to the death of both 

 the body and the mind. 



During life, all was activity, all was vital, or spontaneous 

 motion, all was the exercise of organic function. In plants, 

 absorption, assimilation, and distribution of fluids, with growth 

 and development of parts. In animals, prehension, digestion, 

 and assimilation of food ; with growth, loco-motion, intellec- 

 tion ; and in man the faculty of speech ; — all referable to the 

 agency of that subtle, invisible, and incomprehensible some- 

 thing called life, which counteracts and controls mechanical 

 and chemical agencies, and converts them to its own purposes. 

 — If I move my arm from the pendant position, and raise it 

 to a horizontal or upright position, the agency of gravitation 

 is counteracted. If the materials that compose the living 

 fabric do not tend to putrefaction, the agency of chemical affi- 

 nities is counteracted. But in death there is no longer any 

 resistance opposed to these agencies, no living action, no spon- 

 taneous motion, no exercise of organic function : in short, 

 the fabric is no longer a living system. Chemical and me- 

 chanical agencies affect it merely, exerting themselves in their 

 full strength, and reducing it, sooner or later, to the primordial 



and 



