AND IMMATERIALISM. 



fesists the laws of chemical change or putrefaction, which instantly com- 

 mence their operation as soon as this agent or endownrient ceases ; and 

 which, witli the nicest skiii and harmony, perpetuates the lineaments of 

 the different kinds and species through iTi!iumerab]e generations. It is an 

 agency which exists as completely in the seed or the egg as In the mature 

 plant or animal : tor as long as it is pi esent, the seed of the egg is capable 

 of specific developement and growth ; but the moment it quits its con- 

 nexion, they can no more grow than a grain of gunpowder. 



What now is this wonderful principle that so strikingly separates or- 

 ganized frcm inorganized matter ? that, as 1 h?!ve observed on a former 

 occasion, from the first moment it begins to act infuses energy into the 

 lifeless clod ; draws forth form and order, and individual being from un- 

 ahapen matter, and stamps with organization and beauty the common dust 

 we tread upon I have called it an agent or endowment ; is it nothing 

 more than these ? is it a distinct essence ? and if so, is this essence re- 

 fined, etherealized matter, freed from the more obvious properties of grosser 

 matter, or is it strictly immaterial ? It has been said by difierent physiolo- 

 gists to be oxygene, caloric, the electric or the galvanic gas ; but all this 

 is mere conjecture ; and even of several of these powers we know almost 

 as httie as we do of tho vital principle itself, and are incapaoie of tracing 

 them in the vegetable system. 



The next curious eiiergy we meet with in organized nature, and which 

 also equally belongs to animals and vegetables, is instinct. This I have 

 defined to be "the operatioii of the vital principle, or the principle of or- 

 ganized life by the exercise of certain natural powers directed to the pre- 

 sent or future good of the individual, or of its progeny."! But what are 

 these powers, with which the vital principle is thus marvellously gifted, 

 and which enables it, under different circumstances, to avail itself of dif- 

 ferent means to produce the same end ? — that directs plants to sprout forth 

 from the soil, and expai^d themselves to the reviving atmosphere ; fishes 

 to deposite their eggs in the sands ; birds in nests, of the nicest and most 

 skilful contrivance ; and the wilder quadrupeds to accomplish the same 

 purpose in lairs or subterraneous caverns ; that guides the young of every 

 kind to Its proper food, and, whenever necessary, teaches it how to suck ? 

 Are these powers also material, or are they immaterial ? Are they simple 

 properties issuing out of a pe-;uliar modification of matter, or something 

 superadded to the material frame ? 



In the confused language and confused ideas of various metaphysical 

 hypotheses, and even of one or two that pretend to great exactness in 

 these respects, instmct is made a part or faculty of the mind : and hence 

 we hear of a moral instinct. But has the polype, then, or the hydatid a 

 mind ? Are we to look lor a mmd in the midst of sponges, corals, and 

 funguses ? — in the spawn of frogs, or the seeds of mushrooms ? Instinct, 

 however, the operation of the principle of life, equally superintending the 

 entire frame, and every separate | ai t of it, guiding it to its perfect develope- 

 ment, exciting its peculiar energies, remedying its occasional evils, and 

 providing for a future progeny, is equally to be traced in all of them ? Are 

 instinct, then, and mind the same thing ? or is the vocabulary of the hy- 

 potheses I now advert to, and shall have occasion to examine more at 

 large hereafter, so meagre and limited that it is necessary to employ the 

 same term to express ideas that have no connexion with each other, and 

 which cannot, therefore, be thus expressed without the grossest confusion ? 

 ♦ Ser. 1. Lect. IX, t Ser. II. Lect IV. 



