THE SOUL. 549 



tity of power is now the same as it ever was. Its variations are analo- 

 gous to the apparent transmutations of ponderable material. They are 

 mere metamorphoses. 



Matter and force are equally incapable of destruction. Each constitu- 

 ent atom of the animal mechanism, though it may be dismissed for the 

 time as useless, is not lost, but sooner or later is economized in some 

 organic form again. The heat which seems to arise from the most in- 

 significant muscular contraction has been, so to speak, many a time in 

 existence before, and after it has escaped from the system is not lost to 

 the world, but discharges one function after another forever ; and if thus 

 neither matter nor force can die, it would be a great anomaly if the prin- 

 ciple of conscious identity were capable of annihilation. Like them, it 

 may be capable of modification or change, and, like them, it is not capa- 

 ble of loss of existence. The creeds of various nations recognize this 

 great truth ; they differ only in their ideas of what that future state of 

 modification may be. 



Perhaps in some age hereafter physiology will find herself sufficiently 

 advanced to offer her opinion on this profound topic, for I can not think 

 that GOD has left us without a witness in this matter, even in the struc- 

 ture and development of the body itself. From the moment that we see 

 the first traces of the nervous mechanism lying in the primitive groove, 

 we recognize the subordination of every other part to that mechanism. 

 For it, and because of it, are introduced the digestive, the circulatory, 

 the secretory, the respiratory apparatus. They are merely its ministers. 

 And, fastening our attention on the course which it pursues, we see that 

 it is at once a course of concentration and development. The special is 

 at each instant coming out of the more general, and, from the beginning 

 to the end, the whole aim is at psychical development. The germinal 

 membrane is cast away as soon as a stomach can be prepared, aquatic 

 respiration ceases as soon as aerial can be maintained. The scaffolding 

 that was of use at one moment is thrown aside as soon as a new eleva- 

 tion is reached. The germ, the embryo, the infant, are only successive 

 points in a progress which at every instant displays this casting away 

 of the means that have been used as soon as they are done with. That 

 is the style in which the work is carried on. The principle which ob- 

 scurely animated the germ is the same which in a higher way animates 

 the embryo, and this again is the same which, in a more exalted condi- 

 tion, animates the infant and the man. The cloudy speck which ushers 

 in the phantasmagoria of life expands as the great Artist directs until 

 every lineament has become visible. 



That active agent which was first laid in a fold of the germinal mem- 

 brane was not annihilated when its type of life was changed to placental 

 and therefore aquatic respiration. It withstood the shock when again, 



