114 



ovum. We will however repeat here (referring to these doctrines 

 for the grounds of the assumption), that this spirit has a relation 

 which has been called one of affinity with the materials; that its 

 place (determined by previous acts of causation), being where these 

 materials are subjected to the spiritual affinity, they are aggregated 

 or arranged according to its agency. 



33. Thus then we perceive that an apparent distinction or 

 subdivision arises in the modes of origin by constitution, viz. one 

 which is primitive, resulting from relations between the elements of 

 informal life, contained in its sources; and another which is secon- 

 dary, or arising from a former condition of life, which has been 

 jnodified by death, and is consequently prepared for further modi- 

 fication by a necessary change in its relations. 



34. Now although this distinction appears to be not weakly 

 sanctioned, yet in the real nature of the processes there is no diffe- 

 rence; both these modes of origin being resolvable into those uni- 

 versal ones of causation, viz. by addition or subtraction of proper- 

 ties. In this way that which is called informal has been shewn to 

 become formal life; and in the same manner one spiritual form is 

 by death rendered different from the last; and when again it ap- 

 pears inhabiting a material fabric, it then is that which it is made 

 by a repetition of these same processes; modes of causation, com- 

 mon both to the primitive and secondary forms of life. The dis- 

 tinction may however be admitted, principally for verbal con- 

 veniences, having defined with what limitations if is to be received. 

 Thus much may be said of spiritual origins in a general way: let us 

 return however to that particular one whose history we have more 

 especially undertaken to trace. 



35. We have discovered the complexity o^ the human organic 

 spirit by considering its properties in their effects upon the struc- 

 tures, &c. From this complexity we are inclined to infer that such 

 a spiritual condition is not at once attained. It appears contrary to 

 the little experience we have in the origins of some of the meanest 

 and most simple forms of lift 1 , to imagine that by any single change 

 in the relations of informal life such a state of the principle could 

 at once result. 



3ti. If then this argument (which is of the presumptive kind), 

 supported as it is by all the experience we have on the point, which 

 is little enough, should be allowed to deserve consideration, we 

 should conclude that many forms of organic life preceded the in- 

 tegrity of a human spirit. We should, in conformity with such a 

 view, conceive that its first production from the sources of its ele- 

 ments constituted the simplest state of formal life; that this state 

 of life gradually became more complicated, 1st, by its modification 

 in death, and, 2nd, by a subsequent change of relations and pro- 

 perties which caused it again to be exhibited as a specimen of 

 formal life. 



37. By a repetition of such processes it is impossible to limit 

 the forms of life which may thus be produced. The near relations 



