256 Confederations on animat Life . 
to all Appearance, as that of which it wa$ 
no more than a maimed and imperfedt 
Part *; and befides all this, that they may 
multiply, and produce young ones, in as 
great Numbers, and after the fame Manner, 
as thofe of that Kind that were never cut.—« 
Thefe are Truths, the Belief whereof would 
have been looked upon fome Years ago as 
©nly lit for Bedlam. 
What Life really is, feems as much too 
fubtile for our Underdanding to conceive or 
define, as for our Senfes to difcern and ex¬ 
amine. We have, I think, no Criterion or 
fenfible Proof whereby to diftinguifh Life, 
but Motion; and there certainly are Motions 
fo extremely languid , that they can neither 
become the Objedt of our Eyes or our 
Ideas $ therefore were Motion infeparable : 
from Life, (which is a Point we cannot I 
think determine) both might pofiibly exifi; 
in many Bodies where we fuppofe them 
not. But whatever be the EJfence of Life, 
it is perhaps not to be deftroyed, or really 
injured, by any Accidents that may befall 
the Organs wherein it adfcs, or the Body it 
inhabits. Ox. Butler, the late Bifhop of Dur¬ 
ham, in his ingenious Analogy of Religion to 
the Confutation and Courfe of Nature, gives it 
as his Opinion, page 21, that “We have no 
* The Curious may ccnfult on this Subjeft Di\ Farfons’s 
Ob/ernsations on the Analogy between the Propagation of AnimaU 
and Vegetables, page zoo, 
4 f more 
