48 



What then, may I ask, is the na- 

 tural inference to be drawn from the ex- 

 amination of this great chain of being, 

 which seems to connect even man with 

 the common matter of the universe? 

 What but that which Mr. Hunter drew, 

 that life must be something independent 

 of organization, since it is able to execute 

 the same functions with such diversified 

 structure, and even in some instances 

 with scarcely any appearance of organi- 

 zation at all. 



The experiments of Sir Humphrey Davy 

 seem to me to form an important link in 

 the connexion of our knowledge of dead 

 and living matter. He has solved the 

 great and long hidden mystery of che- 

 mical attraction, by shewing that it de- 

 pends upon the electric properties which 

 the atoms of different species of matter 

 possess. Nay, by giving to an alkali 



