THE VETERINARY ART IN INDIA. 
109 
stances, as oils, gums, sugars, 8tc., and fibres, bones, cartilage 
ligaments, and animal fluids, are found to proceed from the same 
•elements variously combined ; and though they can be reduced 
to aeriform fluids, the destruction of the smallest particle cannot 
be accomplished by any known power. The body when dead 
putrefies and exhales into those elastic fluids, of which it is ori- 
ginally composed. These fluids mix with the atmospheric air, 
and soon enter into fresh combinations with other matter, be- 
coming again organized, and forming the constituent parts of 
those substances with which they combine. If in vegetables that 
are used as diet, they decompose and enter into some animal 
combination, from which again emanating, they go on perform- 
ing either animal, vegetable, or mineral functions, continually 
combining and decomposing in endless succession, without loss 
of matter or property. This process takes place in every thing 
which putrefies or decays, and is clearly demonstrated in the ani- 
mal and vegetable kingdoms, and most probably exists in every 
part of organized nature. This indestructible property of matter 
naturally led to the belief, that the world and it productions 
could never decay, as not even her smallest particles can be de- 
stroyed, only assuming other forms from the endless variety in 
her combinations. Hence, the above persons concluded, that 
the world existed and must exist for ever; and these conceptions 
militating: against sacred history, religion with them became state 
policy. Thus their moral and religious principles being destroyed, 
they drew conclusions that were wild, bold, and presumptuous, 
and of a nature which the authors on modern chemistry and 
physic never suggested. These conclusions, obviously, must 
sometimes produce a depravity of thinking and acting that does 
more injury to the system they mean to support than every 
opinion they could have urged against it ; and if they would but 
permit their mental effervescence to subside, and calmly investi- 
gate their opinions by the standard of the new doctrines in which 
they profess to believe, I think they must conclude, that how- 
ever extensive and desirable may be the knowledge to which 
they point, yet they are but the discovery of another link in the 
chain of Nature, which rises in perpetual succession until lost 
within the Deity. There must be a line very far removed from 
the first cause which the human mind can never pass, and all 
opinions relating to the higher faculties, as the intellectual ope- 
rations, Sic , must be but wild conjecture on subjects which our 
present state forbids us to attain. This truth must be conspicuous 
to every keen observer of the operations and phenomena of 
nature. 
The field of knowledge which is opened to us by the late dis- 
vol. xv. p 
