326 REPRODUCTION OF 



till at last the action ceases, and the tree dies. 

 After that the remains of the tree continue for a 

 longer or shorter time in the organic state, but 

 they at last yield altogether to the laws of inor- 

 ganic matter, and mingle with the general mass of 

 materials for new productions. 



But there still remains the most curious part of 

 the whole matter, and that which forms the grand 

 characteristic of organized beings, when viewed 

 not momentarily but as existing in time. How- 

 ever simple the organization may be, it is so con- 

 stituted that it leaves a memorial behind it a 

 monument of its living action, as well as of its 

 material substance ; and thus, though the indivi- 

 dual yields to that dissolution which is the law 

 and the destiny of all created things, and yields 

 the more readily the more numerous that its parts 

 are, and the more delicate the operations which 

 they have to perform, the life is continued. Not 

 that it is absolutely secure proof against every 

 contingency ; for nature can separate every thing 

 that nature combines : and as the succeeding race 

 is intrusted to the world in the state of an embryo, 

 and depends upon the action of external causes 

 for its development into the matured being ; a 

 suspension of these causes, or a change in the 

 mode of their operation, may cause the embryo to 

 remain inactive ; and if that happens in every in- 

 stance, the race may perish either from any par- 

 ticular country, or from the world altogether. 



Those causes of more than ordinary dissolution 

 of organized being, whether vegetable or animal, 

 are very obscure portions of natural history. We 

 are unable to see them in operation, and the dead 

 remains have no story to tell, excepting only that 



