EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 77 



senses, the power of his mind becomes progres- 

 sively weakened; that instead of attaining the 

 prerogative of being a free agent, he continues 

 in the condition of a child, or of a man who 

 lives like a brute, impelled and chained down 

 by that fatal necessity of sin which he cannot, 

 in that state, avoid. 



Miserable, indeed, would be the condition 

 of man, if the fatal necessity to obey the force 

 of passion to which the sensualist and the de- 

 praved are doomed, extended to the whole 

 race ; if he were destitute of the power of di- 

 recting and of regulating the ideas, which, in 

 consequence, arise ; or, if none subsist, but those 

 excited by objects of sense. It has been well 

 observed by Dr. GJREGORY, on the inconsis- 

 tency of the fatalists, that if this were the case, 

 there could be no variety, and scarcely any 

 change in the pursuits of men ; the thoughts 

 would fio\v from each other, in one uninterrupt- 

 ed series, and man could not be an accountable, 

 and scarcely a rational, being. It is, however, 

 very plain that we have a power of interrupting 

 a train of thoughts, and of dwelling more in- 

 tensely upon particular ideas, and even of 

 occasionally directing our reflections and con- 

 templations into new channels ; and this power 

 alone, is sufficient to constitute mail, a free 

 agent. 



Although there are many parts in Mr. 



