92 DOCTRINE OF MATERIALISM. 



organisation ? What is the cause that the mul- 

 titude of seeds, and of eggs, which are depo- 

 sited in the same soil, and exposed to the same 

 air, are able to act upon the different sub- 

 stances by which they are surrounded : to 

 convert them from a dead to a living state; 

 from a state of dispersion, to a state of combi- 

 nation ; from a tabula rasa to organisation and 

 form ; from chaos itself into symmetry and 

 order ; and from a multitude of separate parts, 

 into one whole system, total and complete? 

 Although I have frequently heard much inge- 

 nuity displayed in reasoning upon this super- 

 structure, I have often witnessed much folly 

 and ignorance, in attempts to account for the 

 foundation of it. Instead of supposing that the 

 different organs, which different beings possess, 

 are the recipients only of these different powers, 

 and that the matter of which they are composed, 

 would, without them, be as imbecile and inert 

 as the shoe is without the foot, or as the musi- 

 cal instrument is, without the art, or skill, of the 

 musician : it is to the matter alone that the 

 whole power is referred. An hypothesis, such 

 as this, is not more absurd than that which is 

 assumed, that the organs with which living be- 

 ings are endowed are the cause, primary and 

 efficient, of which vitality and intellect are the 

 effect. With as much reason might it be af- 

 firmed, that the pen with which I write, moves 



