90 
ON LIFE AND ORGANIZATION. 
in all its parts, and then put into living action, in the same way 
as we construct a machine, and then set it a-going. The organi- 
zation is the product of the life ; and therefore the life must have 
the priority in existence. And because life is not substantive 
matter — not visible to our senses — not in any way to be estimated 
by weight or measure — it does not thence follow, that life has no 
existence ; for, on the contrary, without it there could have been 
no organized being, any more than there can, in any other case, 
be produce without any producer. The inference from this is as 
plain and as obvious as any inference can be ; and it leads us 
directly to the account given in the sacred volume — that not only 
life, taken in general terms, was part of the work of the Creator 
at the beginning, but that the wonders of His power reached and 
determined every kind of life. “ God made the beast of the earth 
after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that 
creepeth upon the earth after his kind.” 
“ There is no study more interesting and instructing* than the 
contemplation of a living body : it brings home to you the perfec- 
tions of the great Author of your existence — it gives you the 
most striking instances of his power and wisdom — and it furnishes 
you with this just conclusion, — -that the same power which formed 
continues to watch over and protect. If the geologist examines 
the structure of the earth, and considers the changes it has under- 
gone, he concludes that all this is to bring about what is best for 
those who are on its surface. But then this is effected by ope- 
rations so tremendous, and at such a distant period of time, that 
he is not able to imagine that the great Being who accomplished 
it can attend to so minute a creature as man.” 
And if the astronomer contemplate the heavenly bodies, he finds 
their space so immense, so immeasurable, that he comes back over- 
whelmed at the idea of his own insignificance. “ Earth,” to use 
the language of one, “ appears like a heap of dust, like an ant- 
hill, in which some are carrying straws, and some food ; but it 
is only aheap of dust.” And is this all? — Is this the only end 
of philosophy — to bring home to man his own insignificance! 
Now, I say that a proper consideration of the human structure 
corrects this idea. There is not a globule of blood that passes 
through a living frame but is retained in its course, in its charac- 
ter, in its place, by law; by the same law which holds the pla- 
nets in their course ; and the one is not more surprising than the 
other. Throughout the whole universe, the Almighty influence 
is seen in the small as in its greatest scale — the same power which 
can rend the mountain can revive the spirit of the mite, or call the 
Sir C. Bell. 
