DECAY. 3 1 



the heads of recently slaughtered animals ; the 

 muscles of the ox, for example, when skinned and 

 hung up, may be seen contracting and relaxing, 

 their movements vigorously responding to the 

 application of stimuli. 



The growth or development of living beings, 

 for which such wondrously minute and exquisite 

 arrangements have been made by the great Creator, 

 is determinate. At the appointed time, maturity is 

 reached and a change is easily discoverable : the 

 demands of the system for nutrition are less pressing; 

 assimilation is not so rapid; the circulating fluids 

 are propelled feebly; and all the phenomena of life 

 are languidly carried on. This decline, the har- 

 binger of death, proceeds from the gradual exhaus- 

 tion of the vital energy an exhaustion for which 

 we cannot account. We call it, indeed, a law of 

 nature ; but why should not the organic machine, 

 having once begun, go on for ever? Why should 

 not the powers which conducted it to maturity and 

 enabled it to make good its losses and injuries, still 

 continue in all their mysterious energy ? Who can 

 tell why ? 



" It appears," says Cuvier, " that life ceases from 

 causes similar to those which interrupt all other 

 known motions, and that the hardening of the fibres, 

 and the obstruction of the vessels, would render 

 death a necessary consequence of life, as rest is that 

 of every movement not occurring in a vacuum, 

 when that event shall not be forestalled by a 



