100 OSCILLATION'S OB VIBRATIONS 



ble impression in the . solid parts of its fabric. All the bright 

 and stormy days of its life, every wind that has shaken its 

 foliage, and every rain-drop that has wetted its roots, have helped 

 to mould its physical organization, and make it just what it is. 

 "We see, however, that in the figure of its leaves, the form of 

 its branches, and the color of its flowers, it is governed by 

 peculiar laws of life impressed on the seed, and that it possesses 

 an internal organizing power by which it can to a certain ex- 

 tent form itself, notwithstanding the indelible impressions left 

 on its .organization by the events of its life. 



And is it not thus with the successive generations of man ? 

 Like the flowers of the field and the trees of the forest, do not 

 we all develop according to the same general laws running 

 through the same cycle of life changes of infancy, maturity, 

 decay, and dissolution ? Yet each individual is governed by a 

 peculiar specific law. Is there not an individuality about each 

 of us? Hence, like the plants around us, do we not possess, 

 to a certain extent, an organizing power within ourselves? 

 Like the trees, we are inseparably connected with the material 

 world, from whence our organization derives impressions. We 

 are a part of the universe. The matter of which our bodies 

 are composed, like that of trees and flowers, is held together 

 by attraction, and after a while, like them, the present living 

 generation will disappear from the landscape,^ dissolved into 

 earth and air. But not an atom perishes. The same matter 

 again reappears in other forms of life and beauty. It is not 

 the first time that the matter which composes the present living 

 organized creation has been vitalized. How then can this 

 grand machine of Nature be without guidance ? Who will say 

 that there is no plan or system in this thing? Is it not also 

 plain, that we are connected with the past and future in ada- 

 mantine chains, and that the species of independency and sepa- 

 ration from external nature which we attribute to ourselves is 

 a mere figment ? 



And if matter is thus imperishable,* then gravity, heat, light, 



* There is not now and, in the author's opinion, never was, a chaos or state 

 of things in which the atoms of material bodies were heterogeneously disposed. 



