8o 
Life and its Basis. 
[February, 
terious link between it and the body, and will thenceforward 
be the vehicle of the soul in its new condition. And thus 
will, we may suppose, be maintained the continuity of 
material conscious existence. For I regard it in the light of 
a physical necessity, that a created mind should have some 
species of embodiment during its whole existence. The limi- 
tation of mind by material corporeity, seems to be the only 
possible mode of giving it either individuality or locality. 
Not that such a state of non-corporeity is an abstract impos- 
sibility, but that it seems inconsistent with all we know of 
the nature and relations of the two entities. The beings we 
ordinarily speak of as spirits , whether they have once dwelt 
in earthly bodies or not, have probably as real a corporeity 
as we have, although sethereal in its nature, and therefore 
ordinarily invisible to us. We must, however, remember 
that aether itself, the very matter of light , is absolutely in- 
visible to us, except it be in a certain definite kind of motion. 
I may further observe that it is quite as conceivable that 
a living being should be embodied in the sethereal as in the 
more concrete and solid forms of matter. Such a transfor- 
mation, then, may be in store for the human family, as the 
late Isaac Taylor shows to be probable on the highest philo- 
sophical grounds (see his “ Physical Theory of Another 
Life,” passim.) 
According to our present theory, therefore, matter in some 
form or other, is the adtual basis of life, and that probably 
everywhere in the physical universe. And the only cause 
and reason of this is, that it seemed good to Him who is the 
first and last cause of all existences, natural or spiritual. 
Of the essence of matter we are, in our present state, pro- 
foundly ignorant ; we only know some of its effects or 
properties. But whether it consists of the corpuscles of a 
Newton, or the fire-mist of a Laplace, the atoms of a 
Dalton, or the infinite centres of force contended for by a 
Berkeley or a Boscovich, one thing is certain, — that there is 
behind and beyond, beneath and above, yea in all matter, 
visible or invisible, known or unknown, a supreme intelli- 
gent Being, “the Father of lights,” the Maker, Upholder, and 
Ruler of all, and the ever-living Source of all life. 
To sum up briefly the whole subject, I regard terres- 
trial “ life,” whether animal or vegetable, not as a distinct 
entity , but as a temporary condition of certain peculiar kinds of 
matter , the efficient cause of which condition is the will of 
the Supreme, incessantly working as an Omnipresent Being 
in forming and maintaining living things ; chiefly by means 
of sethereal forms of matter, which are put into various 
