to dissolution. The government of the chymicals, their conformity 

 &c. to the spirit, is rested upon proofs before frequently mentioned, 

 which shew that there exists no true causation, such as identifies the 

 spirit with the structures. 



4. But the chymicals are liable to become re-agents in spon- 

 taneous processes: thus the products of disease, morbid poisons, 

 (which, consisting of chymical materials, and displaying no charac- 

 teristic phenomena of life, may be enumerated among the class of 

 chymicals,) being produced by processes peculiar to the living body, 

 are capable of affecting the spirit by absorption, &c. 



5. Chymical agency, producing animal changes, may be primitive 

 when the agents are introduced from without. In this way poisons 

 kill by inoculation, by being taken into the stomach or into the 

 lungs, &c. In these cases the relation of such foreign chymicals 

 may be direct or mediate in regard to the spirit, as before explained. 



(>. It cannot be proved that the relation between the spirit and 

 the mechanicals is ever direct. If the spirit is influenced by 

 mechanical injury, it is because the relation between the parts of the 

 spirit itself in respective spheres suffers a disturbance, correspondent 

 with the mechanical disturbance; and when the spirit acts upon the 

 mechanical arrangements, it is by its relation with the chymical 

 materials by which these arrangements are composed. 



7. The mechanicals may be directly influenced by the chymicals: 

 thus, a nerve or any other part may be destroyed by caustic, or its 

 organization impaired. The mechanicals are influenced by the 

 chymicals, not by a direct relation which external chymicals have 

 with the mechanicals, but by one which the external have with the 

 animal chymicals; these last composing the animal mechanicals, the 

 latter suffer by the influence of a cause, whose relation is with the 

 former. 



8. We distinguish in the ordinary substances of nature proper- 

 ties of two kinds: 1st, those which belong to matter, and which 

 together with their agencies are called mechanical: these properties 

 are distinguished by reason of their being common to, or con- 

 stituting all matter; 2nd, properties which are peculiar to respective 

 substances, and which in each act and are acted upon in a way 

 which is not common to all matter: this difference gives rise to the 

 distinctive appellation of chymical properties or chymical substances. 

 But although there is some sort of difference between these two 

 classes, yet are the relations of each extended by their union ; the 

 reason of which is, that a certain alliance or affinity subsists between 

 the common and the chymical properties of matter, so that when 

 either is influenced, the effect of it upon the other will be according 

 to the established relation between them ; which relation appears to 

 be very capricious, inasmuch as it is almost infinitely varied in the 

 several examples. 



29. It is scarcely possible to give a closer reason for the in- 

 variable union of chymical properties with those of matter than 

 this general one, deduced in conformity with the laws of causation, 



