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examined with this view. The most that has been done is to have 

 remarked some few effects which belong to the origin by deriva- 

 tion, and to have theorized a little upon these topics; we have no 

 experience to help us in this decision, not having known an origin 

 of the human organic spirit but by derivation. Facts also, which 

 ivould afford the evidence even of a weak analogy, seem to be 

 wanting, because such a drift of inquiry has never been indicated, 

 without which previous step it is scarcely to be expected that in 

 a matter so remote and intricate any data should be attained. As 

 it is now less my business to discover new facts than to reason 

 upon those which we have, so for the present these questions must 

 be dismissed. 



3. It is equally impossible to pronounce at what period these 

 elements were combined, since traditional evidence has been found 

 defective, and since too, in the immensity of duration without 

 beginning which has belonged to the world, the same changes 

 might have recurred many times; it might have been peopled by 

 the causes which have made our generation what it is; destruction 

 might have succeeded, partial or total, in regard to human forms, 

 and myriads of ages might have elapsed before the materials 

 of the universe were disposed to repeat their former processes of 

 causation. 



4. Whether or not this spirit was formed at once or by many 

 approximations, we are equally unqualified to pronounce upon, by 

 reason of the absence of direct proofs. It appears that it would 

 be supposing a concurrence too complicated for one single act : 

 on the other hand, it appears that if the state of life is not directly 

 established, that combination which belongs to it would tend 

 rather to decomposition than to a gradual perfection of its nature. 

 This consideration, however, belongs not to evidence of the de- 

 cisive kind. 



5. Lastly, that we are ignorant of the elements of this organic 

 spirit will not be doubted. It is true we have a satisfactory infor- 

 mation by inference of many things which its properties are capa- 

 ble of accomplishing; we may acquire no despicable instruction 

 on its laws ; but to say what these properties are, that is, to dis- 

 cover that they resemble precisely, or are a part of, any thing of 

 which we have experience, is beyond our warrant, because its pro- 

 perties have no perceptive relation with our senses. Not to ex- 

 tend any further an examination which must be futile, we will 

 merely say that the obstacles to a decisive apprehension of the 

 mode of the origin of the spirit by constitution will interfere gene- 

 rally, to prevent our understanding of the modes of its alliances, 

 &c. with the grosser materials. We have therefore done with a 

 fruitless search after evidence of the first or second order upon 

 these points, and will next proceed to indicate the force and ten- 

 dency of evidence of another description. 



29. The elements of life being furnished from their proper 

 sources, our choice of these sources must be directed by our 



