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cilable with the following facts: 1st, the process of spiritual 

 assimilation is unremitting: and if, with every new portion of the 

 spiritual elements, an accession of new organic particles were also 

 to take place, these having a permanent place, the increase ef 

 the structures may proceed ad infinitum. 2nd, As the spiritual 

 assimilation goes on under all circumstances of disease, &c. as long 

 as life lasts; so there would, according to this notion, he no 

 possibility of a waste of the structures, unless the quantum 

 of life were diminished, for the spiritual and organic forma- 

 tions must proceed together, they being inseparable; a result 

 which is contrary to facts, as is exemplified in fevers, atrophy, 

 &c. 3rd, The basis of the theory stands in need of support 

 equally with the theory itself: for, in the first place, it re- 

 quires to be proved on its behalf that the elements of the spirit 

 are united with any order of particles, independently of some in- 

 termediate bond, as by chymical or other properties; in the 

 second, it requires to be shewn, supposing that the spiritual pro- 

 perties are thus allied with material particles, that this alliance is 

 not divorced by the process of the spiritual assimilation; and in 

 the third, it must be shewn likewise that these material particles, 

 and no others, existing in the blood, are those which are found in 

 the respective structures. This theory, therefore, from the force 

 of the facts just mentioned, I cannot help rejecting; though if it 

 had been allowable to have passed oft' a theory as a true explana- 

 tion, merely because a beautiful harmony would have been exhi- 

 bited by it, the one in question might "have been extended to 

 many other points, and raised with an agreeable construction. 



30. The second alternative is whether the formation of the 

 structures results from a distinct agency of the spirit upon the 

 material? The conclusion of the affirmative is established by a 

 combination of the proofs before cited, which shew the indispensa- 

 bility of the spirit to the formation of the structures, and those 

 other proofs just mentioned, which are meant to refute the 

 alternative above discussed. But to recapitulate some of these 

 proofs : if life (as has been shewn) operates to the formation of 

 the structures, then the structures must be formed by it, either 

 during its own assimilation in the way described, or as a subse- 

 quent act of life. As the state of the textures conforms not with 

 the assimilation of life, which is perpetual, but with the dispositions 

 of it, natural or diseased, so it must be inferred that the textures 

 are affected and governed by the constitution of the spirit. 



31. Thus, then, life existing in the several seats forms the 

 structures which constitute those seats. This process requires 

 not an elementary condition of life, but the living state of it ; we 

 cannot therefore say whether all the constituent properties concur 

 to this end, or whether the organic particles of the material are 

 related in such a way with only some of them. From our igno- 

 rance of the constituent properties, our analysis of the operations 

 of life are likely to be very deficient; for we are compelled, on 



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