88 DOCTRINE OF MATERIALISM. 



action and motion are produced: so that 

 matter is the primary cause of which life is the 

 secondary effect. 



As varieties of the same species, as chips cut 

 out of the same block, educated in the same 

 school, and instructed in the same principles, 

 are the oxygenous philosophers : physiologists 

 of a more modern date, and of feelings far 

 more refined. They have taken great offence 

 at the baser materialists, for supposing that 

 matter, in general, however gross, however 

 imbecile and inert it may actually be, could 

 possess any inherent power of kneading itself 

 into organs, endowed with animation and 

 spontaneous action. Although these philoso-^ 

 phers virtually adopt the doctrine of the baser 

 Materialists, they vainly think they refine the 

 doctrine by limiting this important property to 

 oxygen in particular, instead of extending it to 

 matter in general. 



It is, therefore, necessary to explore the 

 sources whence oxygen is produced, and the 

 manner in which it is obtained. Oxygen is 

 found in, and obtained from, the oxydes, or 

 calces of metals, and semi-metals ; especially 

 of red-lead, and the black calx of manganese: 

 it is more especially secreted by the last order 

 of animated beings by the vegetable kingdom 

 in general, as excrementitious and foreign. It 

 is this particular air this oxygenous matter 



