TRANSFORMATION OF ANIMALS. 167 



fresh gifts upon us; and her powers would soon be exhausted, 

 if what she perpetually gives were not perpetually restored to 

 her. It is a law of nature, that all organized bodies should 

 be decomposed, and gradually transformed into earth. While 

 undergoing this species of dissolution, their more volatile par 

 tides pass into the air, and are diffused through the atmos- 

 phere. Thus animals, at least portions of them, are buried 

 in the air, as well as in the earth, or in water. These float- 

 ing particles soon enter into the composition of new organized 

 beings, which are themselves destined to undergo the same 

 revolutions. This circulation of organized matter has con- 

 tinued since the commencement of the world, and will pro- 

 ceed in the same course till its final destruction. 



With regard to the intentions of Nature in changing forms, 

 a complete investigation of them exceeds the powers of hu- 

 man research. One great intention, from the examples above 

 enumerated, cannot escape observation. In the animal world, 

 every successive change is a new approach to the perfection 

 of the individuals. Men, and the larger animals, some time 

 after the age of puberty, remain stationary, and continue to 

 multiply their species for periods proportioned to their respec- 

 tive species. When those periods terminate, they gradually 

 decay till their final dissolution. The same observation is 

 applicable to the insect tribes, whose transformations strike 

 us with wonder. The caterpillar repeatedly moults or casts 

 off its skin. The butterfly existed originally in the body of 

 the caterpillar ; but the organs of the fly were too soft, and 

 not sufficiently unfolded. It remains unfit to encounter the 

 open air, or to perform the functions of a perfect animal, till 

 some time after its transformation into a chrysalis. It then 

 bursts through its envelope, arrives at a state of perfection, 

 multiplies its species, and dies. All the changes in the vege- 

 table kingdom tend to the same point. In the process of 

 growing, they are perpetually changing forms till they produce 

 fruit, and then they decay. Some plants, like caterpillars, go 

 through all their transformations, death not excepted, in one 

 year. But others, like man and the larger animals, beside the 

 common changes produced by growth and the evolution of 

 different organs, continue for many years in a state of perfec- 

 tion before the periods of decay and of dissolution arrive. 

 But these perennial plants undergo, every year, all the vicis- 

 situdes of the annual. They every year increase in magrii- 

 * tude, send forth new leaves and branches, ripen and dissem- 

 inate their seeds, and, during winter, remain in a torpid state. 



