DEFINITIONS. 187 



avoid as much as possible what may be accounted as mat- 

 ter of opinion, death has in the foregoing paragraph been 

 considered as merely the cessation of life ; yet it may be 

 proper to observe, that those physiologists appear to have 

 reason on their side, who make it generally an inevitable 

 and necessary consequence of life. In the higher animals 

 and plants, indeed, we are certain that if death should not 

 be produced by accidental causes, it is sure in due time 

 to result from the fibres which compose the cellular sub- 

 stance grooving so thick and rigid, that the fluids cannot 

 penetrate through their interstices. In this sense a body 

 receiving nourishment may be said to imbibe death : so 

 true it is, that by living we die. 



27. It is probable, from the clearest principles of ana- 

 logy, that the foregoing observations apply with equal 

 truth to all matter, whether terrestrial or not. But as 

 beings beyond the reach of sublunary examination may 

 give rise to conjecture, but cannot produce real know- 

 ledge, the widest signification of Natural History has been 

 with propriety rejected, and we are taught to regard the 

 science as relating solely to the phsenomena and proper- 

 ties of those natural bodies which are found in connexion 

 with our globe. And this seems indeed to be the least 

 vague acceptation of the term; though some there are, 

 who by taking into view the mighty distinction which ex- 

 ists between brute matter and that which is organized, 

 and by regretting that there should be no name peculiarly 

 appropriated to the study of this last, have rather unequi- 

 vocally shown their wish to limit the province of Natural 

 History still more, and to confine it to the investigation 

 of the properties and appearances of terrestrial organized 



