VARIETY OF FORM. 359 



vitality evidently depends. These empyreal influences 

 become more and more complicated to us : ascending in 

 the scale, they rise beyond our science ; and, at length, 

 we iind them guiding the power of intelligence, while 

 instinct and reason are exhibited in immediate depend- 

 ence upon them. 



Let it not be imagined that this view has any tendency 

 to materialism. The vital energy is regarded as a 

 spiritualization, and reason as a divine emanation; but 

 they are connected with materialities, on which they 

 act, and by which .they .are themselves controlled. The 

 organic combinations, and the physical powers by which 

 these unions of matter are effected and retained, have a 

 direct action over 'that ethereality which is life, and the 

 powers of life again control these more material forces. 

 The spirit, in whatever state, when connected with mat- 

 ter, is, like Prometheus chained to his rock, in a constant 

 struggle to escape from its shackles, and assert the full 

 power of its -divine strength. 



We -have seen 'variety enough in the substances which 

 make up the inorganic part of creation ; but infinitely 

 more varied are the forms of organization. In the 

 vegetable world which is immediately around us, from 

 the green slime of our marshes to the lustrous flowers 

 of our gardens and the lordly trees of our forests, what 

 an extraordinary'diversity of form is apparent ! Prom 

 .the infusoria of an hour, to the gigantic elephant roam- 

 ing in his greatness in the forests of Siam -the noble 

 lion of the caves of Senegal the mighty condor of the 

 Andes and onward to man, the monarch of them all, 

 how vast are the differences, and yet how complete are 

 they in their respective conditions ! In the creation we 

 have examined, we have had conclusive evidence, that 

 from the combination of atoms every peculiar form has 

 been produced. In the creation we are about to 

 examine, we shall discover that all the immense diversity 

 .of form, .of colour, and condition which is spread over 



