Ill 



fixing, and in turn obeying relations. Who shall limit the execu- 

 tion of such grand alliances'? who shall say what cannot result 1 

 Let us however descend to the more humble employment of 

 tracing faintly what might result, or what has been done. 



26. Beginning then with almost perceptible effects, that 

 spirit of man whose influence has been before partially developed, 

 we find, is identified. It is identified by what? Our doctrines 

 tell us, by its causes; these working, through all that complexity 

 of relation above sketched, imperfectly. Thus much in a general 

 way: but is not the manner to be traced more closely] Let us 

 examine what those processes of causation might be to which 

 such rare phenomena have been ascribed. 



27. Of the particular causation of the organic spirit of man 

 it is impossible to speak with precision in the limited state of our 

 experience ; many questions must arise to which no answers of the 

 satisfactory kind can be given. These questions may serve to 

 exercise the ingenuity of those who chuse to exercise their in- 

 genuity upon them; and if they would attain an absoluse success, 

 they must first discover some new laws and principles to work with. 

 Some of these questions are the following: 1st, Where was the 

 organic spirit of man first constituted] 2nd, By what previous 

 acts of causation were its elements associated? 3rd, At what 

 period were they combined 1 4th, Was this spirit identified at 

 once, or was it a nucleus, which received many accessions until its 

 perfection was accomplished? 5th, What are the elements, or 

 what are the causes, on a gross analysis, which compose it? &c. 



28. Then, considering it in its union with the material organs, 

 it is to be asked, 1st, What was the primitive state of the spirit 

 in regard to them? 2nd, What were the circumstances necessary 

 to its forming the corporeal alliances which it has now attained? 

 3rd, Was the present formation of the textures at once produced, 

 or by many preparatory changes? These and many more ques- 

 tions must arise upon this intricacy : our unaided reason shall 

 shew to what extent she dares proceed towards their settlement 

 respectively. 



1. It is totally beyond the scope of the wildest conjecture, 

 founded on any thing like natural evidence, to say where the or- 

 ganic spirit was first produced, there being no more reason for 

 preferring one place than another. Nor is it possible to say 

 \vhether it was formed by constitution in one place, or in many, 

 seeing that we have no grounds for supposing that the agents by 

 which such a process was accomplished, existed in one place and 

 not in another. 



2. In order to determine by what previous acts of causation 

 the elements of this spirit were associated, it will be necessary, 

 first, to ascertain the agents engaged in the work, and, second, 

 what the relations of these agents were with each other, together 

 with a history of the influences and mutations which they had 

 themselves suffered, It is obvious that nature has never been 



