34 



ON THE ELEMENTARY AND CONSTITUENT 



to have perished : forty to have changed their magriitude by becoming either 

 much larger or much smaller; and ten new stars to have supplied the place 

 of those that are lost.* Some of these changes may perhaps be accounted 

 for by supposing a proper motion in the solar or siderial systems by which the 

 relative positions of several of the heavenly bodies have varied. JBut this ex 

 planation, though it may apply to several of the cases, will by no means apply 

 to all of them ; in many instances it is unquestionable, that the stars them- 

 selves, the supposed habitations of other kinds or orders of intelligent beings, 

 together with the diflerent planets by which it is probable they were sur- 

 rounded, and to which they may have given light and fructifying seasons, as 

 the sun gives light and fruitfulness to the earth, have utterly vanished, and 

 the spots which they occupied in the heavens have become blanks. What 

 has thus befallen other systems will assuredly befall our own; of the time 

 and the manner we know nothing, but the fact is incontrovertible ; it is fore- 

 told by revelation, it is inscribed in the heavens, it is felt throughout the 

 earth. Such is the awful and daily text; what then ought to be the com 

 ment ? 



LECTURE H. 



ON THE ELEMENTARY AND CONSTITUENT PRINCIPLES OF TmNGS. 



Our study for the present lecture is the first or simplest principles of bodies, so 

 far as we have hitherto been able to obtain any degree of knowledge upon this 

 recondite inquiry, and the means by which they are combined or separated 

 from each other, so as to produce different kinds and orders of sensible objects. 



A very slight contemplation of nature is sufficient to show us that matter 

 under every visible form and modification, when regarded in its general mass, 

 is perpetually changing ; alternately living, dying, and reviving ; decomposing 

 into elements that elude our pursuit ; and recombining into new shapes and 

 energies and modes of existence. The purest and most compact metals be- 

 come tarnished or converted into a calx or oxide on its surface, and the 

 most durable and crystallized rocks crumble into granules ; and the matter 

 constituting these oxides and granules, by an additional series of operations, 

 is still farther decomposed, till every vesiige of their late character is lost, 

 and the elementary principles of which they consisted are appropriated to 

 other purposes, and spring to view under other forms and faculties. The 

 same process takes place in the organized world. The germ becomes a 

 seed, the seed a sapling, the sapling a tree ; the embryo becomes an infant, 

 the infant a youth, the youth a man: and having thus ascended the scale of 

 maturity, both, in like manner, begin the downward path to decay ; and, so 

 far as relates to the visible materials of which they consist, both at length moul- 

 der into one common elementary mass, and furnish fresh fuel for fresh gene- 

 rations of animal or vegetable existence ; so that all is in motion, all is striving 

 to burst the bonds of its present state ; not an atom is idle ; and the frugal eco- 

 nomy of nature makes one set of materials answer the purpose of many, and 

 moulds it into every diversified figure of being and beauty and happiness. 



It has hence been said, that matter is necessarily corruptible, and is per- 

 petually changing from its intrinsic nature, and that the physical and moral 

 evils of life are mainly attributable to this perverse and incorrigible propen- 

 sity. Such was the doctrine of many of the most eminent schools of ancient 

 philosophy, both of Greece and Asia, and such continues to be the doctrine 

 of various schools of the present day ; a doctrine which has not unfrequently 

 been considered as of the utmost importance, and as forming the best defence 

 of the benevolence of the Supreme Architect; who, we are told, notwith- 



* See Dr. Herschel's Observations compared with Flamsteed's, Phil. Trans, vol. IxxiiL art. 17 



