COMBINATION OF FORCES. 331 



seeds, the growth of the plant, the development of its 

 fruit and its ultimate decay, the secret processes of 

 animal life, assimilation, digestion, and respiration, and 

 all the changes of external form, which take place around 

 us, are the result of the exercise of that principle which 

 we call chemical. 



By chemical action plants take from the atmosphere 

 the elements of their growth ; these they yield to 

 animals, and from these they are again returned to the 

 air. The viewless atmosphere is gradually formed into 

 an organized being, the lordly tree upon whose branches 

 the fowls of the air have their homes, and the human 

 animal, exalted by being charged with a spiritual soul : 

 yet the tree and the man alike are gradually resolved 

 again into thin air. The changes of the mineral world 

 are of an analogous character ; but we cannot trace them 

 so clearly in all their phenomena. 



The planet on which we live began its course charged 

 with a fixed quantity of physical force, and this has 

 remained constant to the present moment, and will do 

 so to the end of time. By influences external to this 

 earth the balance of these forces is continually dis- 

 turbed ; and in the effort to restore the equilibrium, 

 we have the production of all the varied forms of 

 matter, and the manifestation of each particular physical 

 principle or power. As motion and attraction, balanced 

 against each other, maintain the earth in her elliptical 

 orbit, so the opposition of forces determines the existence 

 of the amorphous rock, the light-refracting crystal, the 

 fixed and flowering plant, and the locomotive animal. 



An eternal round of chemical action is displayed in 

 nature. Life and death are but two phases of its in- 

 fluences. Growth and decay are equally the result of 

 its power. 



