ON LIFE AND ORGANIZATION. 
85 
tion of the world by a Being of infinite wisdom and power, and 
of every living creature after its kind, as is expressly declared in 
the sacred volume. 
The doctrine of materialism strikes at the root of all moral 
obligation, reduces man to a mere creature of the world, leads 
him to make the most of his enjoyments by what means he can, 
fulfilling to the letter the epitaph of Sardanopalus, “ Eat, drink, 
and be merry, for the rest is nothing an epitaph, says Aristo- 
tle, fit for a hog. It cannot be doubted that Sardanopalus was 
one of those who considered the grave “ a place of eternal rest.” 
This brings me to the last character by which a living body is 
distinguished — that of terminating its existence by the process of 
death. 
5. In all the details of terrestrial nature, whatever they may be, 
it appears that the properties of the instrument as matter, and the 
interferences of external agencies, always become, in the course of 
time, longer or shorter, according to circumstances, too powerful 
for every individual agent, and ultimately put an end to its work- 
ing. This final victory of the dull and silent properties of mere 
matter over the activity of the most energetic life in matter, is in 
accordance with all the terrestrial actions which we witness in those 
parts of matter which are not under the influence either of life or 
growth. The only exceptions which we know are those of the 
motions of the planets, and the actions of the beams of the sun ; 
and they are so stupendous, and we know so little of their causes, 
as existing in any thing but the mere phenomena which we see, 
that we cannot bring them into comparison. 
All mechanical actions in terrestrial matter, however powerful 
their causes may be, are ultimately brought to an end by gravita- 
tion; and compounds and aggregates are liable to be dissolved by 
so many chemical agencies that we cannot confidently assert that 
any one inch of the solid, any one drop of the liquid, any one 
breath of the aerial contents of our globe is in the same state 
now as when first created. The probability is, that it is not ; for 
all that we meet with, either on the surface of the earth, or dig 
from under it, is either a ruin, or a new individual formed out of 
the old materials or something else. 
We might carry our illustration farther; for everywhere in na- 
ture we meet with a stop — a check, as it were, or limit. Some 
of the small flies which are hatched in the mud by the banks of 
rivers, and get on the wing during the night or early dawn, do not 
live to enjoy one blink of sunshine. Man numbers his threescore 
and ten years ; some other animals, as the eagle, the elephant, and 
especially the large cartilaginous fishes, have a longer duration ; 
and there are some peculiar trees which can exist for five hundred 
VOL. XII. M 
