LAW OF CHANGE IN ATOMS, INDIVIDUALS, AND RACES. 7 



ganic atom in an animal, has for its object the production of a given result, and is 

 itself the result of the action of ordinary physical powers. 



20. If, thus, the various movements I am executing in writing these pages arise di- 

 rectly from the respiration of oxygen gas, and its transmission, by arterial blood, through 

 the system, and each letter that I have penned is the result of the death of parts of this 

 animal frame, which, in their removal, have ended in the production of motion and 

 heat, it is plain that there is no essential difference between the death of an organic 

 atom and the extinction of an animal race. Of the thousands of animal forms which 

 have ceased to live, and of which, indeed, we should have no knowledge but for their 

 remains, which have been entombed in the earth, what has been the cause of the dis- 

 appearance of each successive race ? How is it that, at a given epoch, these animated 

 forms have on a sudden stood forth, and after continuing for a time, as suddenly dis- 

 appeared 1 Why is it that this disappearance does not take effect in a gradual way, 

 but is so abrupt an affair as to serve, in the hands of geologists, the purpose of marking 

 off one epoch from another ? Do not these total disappearances point to external for- 

 ces of the most extensive operation as the agents that have been at work, and the end 

 and object of those extinctions the production of physical results I 



21. As the cause of extinction of those innumerable tribes of life which have inhab- 

 ited the earth is directly traceable to physical events, for individuals, also, the same law 

 holds good. On the American Continent the mastodon is no longer seen, though but a 

 short time has elapsed since all the rich valleys were thronged with those enormous ele- 

 phants, and still, in the salt-licks, their bones are disentombed along with those of animals 

 that are here with us. Nor is it alone to obscure and unintelligent orders of life that this 

 law of extinction applies. Within the periods of history, have not the same things 

 happened 1 The founders of the greatest empires and republics have ceased to exist. 

 Among us, what has become of that ancient people who built the extensive structures 

 in the Western States ? Their name and every recollection of them have passed away. 

 Even before our eyes, is not the same thing happening ? From the Atlantic States, 

 have not the Indian races nearly disappeared I They are borne by the tide of civili- 

 zation across the great Valley of the Mississippi. Among them one tribe after another 

 is swept away. The blood of the Mandans has ceased to flow in the veins of a single 

 human being. Worn down by famine, by war, and by pestilence, these children of the 

 forest recede before that civilization, the benefits of which they obstinately refuse to 

 receive, and, clinging with an uncontrollable instinct to a wandering and savage 

 life, accompany the wild animals to the remoter woods, or, driven by their necessities, 

 from time to time return among us, and beg in the City of Washington for a blanket 

 and a little bread. 



22. Yet among them there are men capable of the highest emotions and the most 

 noble deeds. The hand of Providence presses upon the Indian. The race, like each 

 individual of it, submits in silence to an irreversible doom. From the day when organ- 

 ization first commenced on the surface of the earth, the law which it has followed has 

 been a law of progress and of evolvemeut. A myriad types of life have been created, 

 and myriads of living forms produced, and the last is the highest. Even with us the 



