MINUTE ORGANIZATION. 251 



from matter that mind cannot die. Small as are those 

 germs to which allusion has been made, they are still 

 material, and they are still organized. They are not 

 those elementary, indivisible, and invisible atoms, of 

 which we must suppose that all nature is made up, and 

 which we must conclude to be indestructible by any 

 other power than that which called them into being: 

 they are compound bodies, each probably containing 

 in its microscopic, nay in its invisible state, many 

 thousands, or many millions of elementary, atoms. 

 Were this not the case, the productions of nature would 

 be fortuitous, and we should have in reality more 

 monsters than ever poet or herald imagined ; but in 

 those cases where nature, as we say, sports the most, 

 (as in vegetables), we always find a limit that cannot 

 be passed ; a similarity of structure and habits, in all 

 cases where we can obtain a fertile, or even a living 

 hybrid. Therefore we must assign to the most minute 

 and undeveloped germ a peculiar organization, parts, 

 and an arrangement of those parts, that admit but of 

 one species of developement. Nor though we can 

 blend vine with vine, have we any reason to believe 

 that we ever possibly can " gather grapes of thorns, 

 or figs of thistles." However small may be the initial 

 form compared with the final developement, it is al- 

 ways true to the species, and, in many instances, to the 

 variety ; and, therefore, we must conclude that the 

 series has never been broken, that a total disintegra- 

 tion of the elementary arrangement has never taken 

 place since the creation, and that those theories 

 which have been framed, whether by the very learned 

 or by the very ignorant (and when confined to one 



