230 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



pie ; and the facts above referred to, among many others that might 

 be adduced, concur in making it highly probable, that it is by the 

 exercise of such a principle that the different fluids are propelled 

 through their respective vessels. There is no other method by 

 which such propulsion can be reasonably accounted for. 



In what part of a plant the vital principle chiefly exists, or to 

 \vhatquarterit retires during the winter, we know not; but we 

 are just as ignorant in respect to animal life. In both it operates 

 towards every point ; it consists in the whole, and resides in the 

 whole; and its proof of existence is drawn from ha exercising al- 

 most every one of its functions, and effecting its combinations in 

 direct opposition to the laws of chemical affinity, which would oth- 

 erwise as much control it as they control the mineral world, and 

 which constantly assume an authority as soon as ever the vegeta- 

 ble is dead. Hence, the plant thrives and increases in its bulk, 

 puts forth annually a new progeny of buds, and becomes clothed 

 with a beautiful foliage of lungs (every leaf being a distinct lung 

 in itself), for the respiration of the rising brood ; and with an har- 

 monious circle of action, that can never be too much admired, fur- 

 nishes a perpetual supply of nutriment, in every diversified forni r 

 for the growth and perfection of animal life ; while it receives in 

 rich abundance, from the waste and diminution, and even decom- 

 position of the same, the means of new births, new buds, and new 

 harvests. 



Frosts and suns, water and air, equally promote fructification in 

 their respective ways ; and the termes or white ant, the mote, the 

 hampster, and the earth-worm, break up the ground, or delve into 

 it, that they may enjoy their salubrious influences. In like manner, 

 they are equally the ministers of putrefaction and decomposition j 

 and liver-worts and fungusses, the ant and the beetle, the dew- 

 worm, the ship-worm, and the wood-pecker, contribute to the gen- 

 eral effect, and soon reduce the trunks of the stoutest oaks, if lying 

 waste and unemployed, to their elementary principles, so as to 

 form a productive mould for successive progenies of animal or 

 vegetable existence. Such is the simple but beautiful circle of na- 

 ture. Every thing lives, flourishes, and decays: every thing dies, 

 but nothing is lost; for the great principle of life only changes its 

 form, and the destruction of one generation is the vivification of 

 the next. Hence, the Hindu mythologists, with a force and ele- 

 gance peculiarly striking, and which are no where to be paralleled 

 in the theogonies of Greece and Rome, describe the Supreme Be- 

 ing, whom they denominate Brahm, as forming and regulating the 

 universe through the agency of a triad of inferior gods, each of 

 whom contributes equally to the general result, under the names of 

 Brahma, Visnu, and Iswara; or the generating power, the preserv- 

 ing or consummating power, and the decomposing power. And 

 hence the Christian philosopher, with a simplicity as much more 

 sublime than the Hindu's as it is more veracious, exclaims, on con- 



