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ON THE 
 
 PRINCIPLES AND ENDS 
 
 OF 
 
 PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 COMPREHENDING 
 
 AN EXAMINATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SYSTEMS WHICH NOW PREVAIL, 
 
 AND 
 
 A DETAIL OF THE ERRONEOUS PRINCIPLES ON WHICH 
 
 THEY ARE FOUNDED, AND OF THE EVILS TO 
 
 WHICH THEY TEND. 
 
 ,-^6 BY 
 
 RICHARD SAUMAREZ, Esq. 
 
 F. R. C. C. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, 
 
 AND SOLD BY E. COX, ST. THOMAS'S STREET, BOROUGH j 
 
 T. EGERTON, CHARING CROSS; AND J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL'S 
 CHURCH YARD. 
 
 1811. 
 
n 
 
 
Fage 7 Line 17 instead of minors read minnows. 
 
 12 of the note insert period after the word that. 
 
 16 Line 10, for connect read convert. 
 
 18 Line 9, after particular add a semicolon ;— 
 
 40 Last line but one, instead of millionth part read one million times 
 
 more. 
 
 55 Line. 5, tot fwictions read sensations. 
 
 58 Line 8, dele pleasure or. 
 
 59 Line 3, after Jife insert to, and after design to. 
 
 60 Line 16, for subsisting read subsist. 
 
 61 Line 3, for divisibly read things divisible. 
 66 Line 9, for philosophers read philosophes . 
 77 Line 31, dele first word Jess. 
 
 135 Last line, for member read members. 
 
 165 Note at the last word of the page beginning May, to be trass* 
 
 posed to page 87. 
 
 174 Head of chapter, read organic lile. 
 
 189 Line 11, us it possessed read that. 
 
 2.07 Last line but one, for specifi.ee read specific, &c. 6rc. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 On the Principles of Physical Science* 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 On the Nature and Properties of Matter in general • • • • 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 On the Relation which Matter bears to the Organs of Sense, 
 comprehending the Nature and Cause of Sensation 
 and the objects of it • • 55 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 On the Power of the Principle of Life and its Relation to 
 Matter; comprehending the Nature and Attributes of 
 the Mind • 71. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 On the Evolution of the Principle of Life, and the End or 
 
 Final Cause for which different Beings were created • • 89 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 On the Means by which Individuals attain the End or Final 
 
 cause of their Existence •«••••••••« • 1 43 
 
11 CONTENTS* 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 On the Physiology of Organic Life, comprehending the 
 Functions of the Organs as the Instruments which are 
 employed toattain those ends ....«♦. J 75 
 
PREFACE 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING the boasted asser- 
 tions which are generally made, of the high de- 
 gree of perfection which in these latter days the 
 different branches of philosophy are supposed 
 to have attained; it will, I fear, upon a fair en- 
 quiry be found, that we continue in the very 
 infancy of our knowledge: that, with the ex- 
 ception of mathematical truths, and of those 
 arts which are founded on mathematical prin- 
 ciples, there subsists scarcely one subject either 
 of physics, of metaphysics, or of physio- 
 logy, the science of which is clearly un- 
 derstood, as to the truth of which an uni- 
 formity of opinion subsists. The essential at- 
 tributes which different bodies possess, and the 
 first and most simple elements of which they are 
 composed, and the definitions by which those 
 elements are characterized, continue to natural 
 
 philosophers 
 
11 
 
 philosophers points of constant controversy and 
 disputation. 
 
 If we extend our views from the primary and 
 essential, to the secondary and accidental qua- 
 lities of matter, to the last and most trifling branch 
 of natural philosophy, to which the province of 
 chemistry more especially belongs ; we shall find 
 that although chemistry has occupied the 
 thoughts of, and been pursued with zeal the most 
 ardent by a great number of learned and en- 
 lightened men in every part of Europe, that we 
 notwithstanding continue completely ignorant 
 of the principles on which chemistry, as a 
 science, is founded. 
 
 Without previous design, or by mere chance, 
 as it may be called, we have, it is true, discover- 
 ed, that when different substances, such as acids 
 and alcalies, for example, are brought in contact, 
 that an union between them takes place ; we are 
 by experience taught, that different bodies have 
 a stronger disposition to unite together, to the 
 exclusion of others with which they may have 
 
 been . 
 
Ill 
 
 been combined; of the cause why these sepa- 
 rations are produced and new combinations 
 formed— on what principle the doctrine of elec- 
 tive attraction, or chemical affinity is founded, 
 we are totally ignorant. 
 
 By the Researches of Professor Davy, in the 
 art of chemistry, a multitude of opinions, which 
 by chemists had been received as fundamental 
 truths, have been overturned and exposed: he 
 has proved that a great portion of the chemical 
 knowledge, not only of former times, but of the 
 present day, is erroneous in some of its most 
 essential points ; and it is now become a com- 
 mon observation amongst our best chemists, 
 that in consequence of these new discoveries, 
 chemists will be probably obliged to trace back 
 the road of error which they have so long tra- 
 versed, in order to learn afresh the first princi- 
 ples of their art.* 
 
 * The Monthly Marine for the present month very justly 
 observes, " that Dr. Davy's Chemical Lectuies shew that stu- 
 dents in chemistry have to unlearn most of what they have re- 
 ceived as authority in that science. It may be hoped therefore 
 
 it 
 
It is greatly to be lamented that the pursuits 
 of the chemists, instead of being confined to their 
 proper objects — to the examination of the qua- 
 lities of matter dead and common — have been 
 equally but improperly directed and extended 
 to the investigation of living matter also ; hoping 
 thereby to explore the causes of animation and 
 of vital action from chemical phenomena, the 
 inevitable attributes of decomposition and de- 
 cay.* 
 
 It has been with this vain expectation that 
 every solid and fluid of which vegetables and 
 animals are composed have been analysed with 
 the most accurate nicety ; and effects attempted 
 to be explained from the result of decomposition 
 and of death, which altogether depend on vita- 
 lity and animation. To this total inversion of all 
 
 that we shall have no other voluminous systems of this variable 
 science, till its elementary principles are somewhat better 
 settled." 
 
 * In deprecating as I do experiments, it is proper that I 
 should he clearly understood. I deprecate the application of 
 chemistry to physiology, as much as I would deprecate the prac- 
 tice of employing the phenomena of death in order to explain 
 
 principles 
 
principle with respect to the relation which ex- 
 ists between things external to the animated 
 system, and the animated system itself, is to 
 be ascribed, the absolute ignorance which pre- 
 vails, not only of the function of digestion, but 
 of the operation of medicine also ; not only of 
 every organ, but of every fluid of which the 
 system is composed. Until physiologists are 
 made to feel that physiology is still an art, not 
 a science; and pathologists that the practice of 
 medicine is altogether empirical; untill the 
 state of eiTor and of ignorance which exists is 
 truly and fairly represented, 1 see no hopes 
 whatever of improvement or of reformation. 
 
 the actions of life; and more especially I deprecate the experi- 
 ments made on different organs and fluids of the living system, 
 because the natural and healthy functions of a part can never 
 be ascertained through the medium of mutilation or extirpa- 
 tion ; but with respect lo the investigation of matter dead and 
 common, experiment alone is the medium through which its 
 properties and attributes can be attained. I think it proper to 
 give this explanation in order that I may not have it thrown 
 in my teeth that I reprobate experimental philosophy in gene- 
 ral, the odium of which I am persuaded would otherwise be at- 
 tempted to be fixed on me. 
 
 Much 
 
VI 
 
 Much as there is to deplore with respect to 
 the application of physiology to practice, it 
 is as a feather in the balance, when compared to 
 the relation which it is supposed to bear to 
 metaphysics. Instead of tracing the relation 
 which the different organs bear to each other, 
 as the means that are employed with a view to 
 ends; instead of exploring the nature of life, 
 and more especially of intellect or of soul, — of 
 that principle by which man is more especially 
 characterized from every other animal, and by the 
 proper exercise of which he is able to abstract him- 
 self from matter and from sense ; it is to the at- 
 tributes of matter alone, impelled by sensible 
 objects, to which the existence of mind is gene- 
 rally ascribed, and the doctrine of materialism, 
 in its fullest extent, attempted to be established. 
 
 Although the doctrine of materialism is not 
 proclaimed in our philosophical schools in word, 
 I will maintain that it is so indeed. I will main- 
 tain that the existence of any immaterial or 
 spiritual principle, is seldom, if ever, so much as 
 mentioned,much less employ ed as constituting the 
 
 cause 
 
Vll 
 
 cause of organization or of intellection ; on the con- 
 trary that it is to the organization alone, and to the 
 matter of which that organization is composed, 
 that the principles of life and of mind, as 
 effects, are immediately referred. This evil 
 spirit, if it dared, would even manifest itself 
 within the bosom of our universities.— Within the 
 last few months two members belonging to 
 one of the principal colleges in Oxford, publish- 
 ed a book entitled " The Necessity of Atheism" 
 and they even had the audacity to attempt a de- 
 fence of the principles it contained, before a con- 
 vocation appointed to examine them: these mis- 
 guided men have been very properly expelled 
 from the university, and the wretched trash 
 which they had written has been suppressed.* 
 
 It has been the object of my most particular 
 solicitude to expose the errors of such pursuits, 
 
 * I think it right to mention this fact as an illustration, more 
 than as a proof, of the truth of my assertions. Whatever blame 
 might formerly be imputed to the laxity of University morals, or 
 University discipline, has been corrected, and the system of edu- 
 cation now pursued bids fair to answer the end for which it was 
 originally designed. 
 
 and 
 
Vlll 
 
 and to point out the evils to which they lead ; 
 to shew that such a system, instead of leading 
 to truth, not only recedes from it, but perpe- 
 tuates and establishes what is infinitely worse 
 than ignorance —erroneous principles: that in- 
 stead of exploring the essential properties of 
 matter with relation to the system of order and 
 subordination which exists throughout the whole 
 system of nature, secondary qualities alone 
 obtained by artificial means, are the objects of 
 our present pursuits: instead of contemplating 
 the attributes of the Creator from the works of 
 Creation, it is through the medium of unnatural 
 phenomena alone, that natural phsenomena 
 are attempted to be explained. I complain 
 that the present system of what is called phi- 
 losophy, is an artificial not a natural one; and 
 that the very first dictum, or aphorism, pro- 
 claimed by Lord Bacon in his Novum Organum, 
 is altogether violated by our philosophers. — 
 " Homo Natura minister et interpres, tan turn 
 facit & intelligit, quantum de naturae ordine, re- 
 vel mente observaverit ; nee amplius scit aut 
 potest" 
 
 I corn- 
 
IX 
 
 I complain that instead of making (as true 
 philosophy must ever tend to do), man religious ; 
 it is at variance with religion, and deprives 
 him of the benefit and of the comforts which reli- 
 gion is calculated to bestow : that instead of 
 leading man to God, it estranges God from man, 
 and separates, to the utmost possible distance, 
 (if I may be allowed the expression), the soul 
 from the Deity. In proof of my assertions, I 
 would appeal to the notorious neglect of pub- 
 lic worship by those who consider themselves 
 what the French call philosophes, as well as by 
 a great proportion of professional men who 
 are considered to possess, in the highest degree, 
 the philosophy or the* science of the profession. 
 
 By them I am persuaded, I shall be viewed 
 with derision and with scorn for having entered 
 upon the subject of theology. I am, however, 
 willing to suffer their reproach* with the hope 
 that to others it may call to their recollection 
 one of the principal ends for which they were 
 created. 
 
 With 
 
With respect to the chapter on Organic Life, 
 or the means by which those ends are attained, 
 it is for the most part a mere syllabus of my 
 system of Physiology.* 
 
 * It was first written with a view of exposing the folly and 
 errors of the Brunonian doctrine, which was at that time in ge- 
 neral estimation in this country, as it still continues to be over 
 different parts of the continent. It is not likely that any sys- 
 tem of physiology which took for its principle the power of life 
 and the aptitude of matter — which traced the phaenomena of 
 vitality from organization to action, and investigated the par- 
 ticular organs as the instruments by which ends were obtain- 
 ed, would be very well received by those who begin with death, 
 and who end with life. Notwithstanding the new opinions which 
 it proclaimed it was generally well spoken of, and by the medical 
 Review it was observed, " that in the execution of the extensive 
 work before us, Mr. Saumarez is in many parts original ; it is 
 however but justice to add, that a? passion for novelty does not 
 appear to have led him to a hasty adoption of opinions on slight 
 or trivial grounds. His arguments are in general well support- 
 ed and his conclusions cautiously deduced. As a whole, it, 
 certainly bespeaks the industry and genius of a writer who dares 
 to think for himself, unfettered by prejudice and authority, &c." 
 again, " we are not sorry to see the errors of the Brunonian 
 system thus combated by an able champion ; it happens with 
 this theory, more than with any former one, that its errors are 
 not merely speculative, but lead to the greatest possible mistakes. 
 Indeed it would be no easy matter to calculate the mischief 
 which it has occasioned in the hands of young and inexperienced 
 practitioners; but when we find, from Dr. Beddoes himself, the 
 translator, its ascendency over men's miflds in different parts 
 
 Before 
 
xi 
 
 Before I conclude I may perhaps be permit- 
 ted to say a few words of myself. Although 
 incessantly employed in the discharge of the 
 duties of my profession, it will not be imputed 
 to me that I neglect any opportunity to acquire 
 whatever information in it which is to be ob- 
 tained. I acknowledge with thanks my obliga- 
 tion to those who supply me with new facts, 
 although I feel myself compelled to deny the 
 conclusions which are often deduced from them. 
 I deplore, as every professional man must do, 
 the imperfect state of medical knowledge, and 
 the little improvement which medical science 
 has undergone. It is from a firm persuasion that the 
 present system is radically wrong that 1 have ven- 
 tured to point out some of its errors. Many 
 of my brethren, for whom I entertain the greatest 
 friendship, will, I fear, reprobate my conduct 
 in disclosing " the secrets of the prison house," 
 and proclaiming to the world truths which 
 
 of Europe, and that in the celebrated University of Pavia, there 
 is hardly a student endowed with talents who is not a Brunonian, 
 it is surely high time to examine its principles and refute its 
 errors, &c. &c, 
 
 many 
 
Xll 
 
 many of them will think ought to be concealed. 
 I nevertheless feel that my motives are beyond 
 the reach of impeachment, and that the igno- 
 rance which I impute to them I acknowledge to 
 participate myself. In the sincere hope that I 
 may do some good in correcting much error, 
 and more especially that I may be instrumental 
 in diverting some of the younger part of the pro- 
 fession from the system of materialism, to which 
 the science of physiology at present unques- 
 tionably tends, I am willing to bear the criti- 
 cism and derision which I must expect. I have 
 no private motives to answer ; I have only in 
 view the general good. The facts which 1 have 
 assumed for principles, and the conclusions 
 which I have deduced from them are fair ob- 
 jects of animadversion. I have made the at- 
 tack and shall be ready to enter upon my de- 
 fence: I nevertheless have to request indulgence 
 from the reader, not only for the hurried style 
 evident in many parts, but for many verbal and 
 typographical errors, which often obscure the 
 meaning ; the most material of these will be cor- 
 rected in the leaf of errata at the beginning of the 
 
 book 
 
Xlll 
 
 book. It is now my intention to proceed with 
 the second part of the subject, and to give the 
 physical or natural history of common matter: 
 it will not be so much my object to add new 
 facts to old principles, as to give new principles 
 to old facts.* 
 
 I shall endeavour to prove that the matter of 
 fire, instead of being simple and elementary is 
 compounded and factitious ; instead of according 
 to the Newtonian hypothesis of light and colours 
 viz. that the colour of a body proceeds from the 
 rays which are repelled, and not absorbed, I 
 shall show that the colour of every body pro- 
 ceeds from the matter of light having united with 
 the body from whence it is reflected and by 
 becoming tinged and dyed with it, the colour- 
 ing matter is conveyed to the eyes; and that 
 black and white instead of being negatives or 
 non-entities, are as absolute and positive as any 
 other colours that exist, and that it is by the 
 
 * It may be proper to observe to the unscientific reader that 
 the word physics does not mean medical but natural, and when 
 I speak of the physical proportion of bodies, I mean those that 
 are natural and essential, not such as are ?ncdicinaL 
 
 other 
 
XIV 
 
 union of the solar rays with atmospheric matter 
 that the different prismatic colours for the most 
 part are produced. That the solar matter, as 
 far as we have any cognisance of it, is altogether 
 different in its nature from any matter belonging 
 to our mundane system, that it is destitute of fire 
 and colour altogether, but possesses the essen- 
 tial attributes alone of transparency and motion; 
 that instead of having gravity or weight, it moves 
 with the most incredible velocity in every direc- 
 tion, in opposition to the laws of gravitation, 
 which to the sun are so hypothetically ascribed ; 
 that the hypothesis which concludes that the 
 sun is a gravitating body, attracting by its gra- 
 vitating matter the whole of the planetary sys- 
 tem, is founded on false assumptions, not only 
 without proof but contrary to proof. That it is 
 by the energy which is imparted to different 
 bodies by the solar rays, that the processes of 
 vaporization and gasification are carried on in a 
 natural state; that the essential properties of 
 every gas is that of expansibility, by which it 
 dilates and expands in every direction from a 
 centre to a circumference; that the weight which 
 is ascribed to gaseous matter is an artificial not 
 
 a na- 
 
XV 
 
 a natural property ; and that the degree of ex- 
 pansibility not of weight is the standard by which 
 its powers ought to be meted or measured; and 
 I shall shew by the most simple, and yet the 
 most decisive experiments, that the elevation of 
 the mercury in the torricellian tube, as well as 
 other fluids in exhausting pumps, are not caused 
 by the weight or gravity of the atmosphere, and 
 consequently that the term Barometer, so uni- 
 versally employed is an erroneous one. 
 
 I shall endeavour to shew that although wa- 
 ter forms one of the constituent materials of which 
 gases are composed; that gases are nevertheless 
 not the constituent materials alone, of which 
 water is formed, that although it is frequently 
 decomposed and deposited out of them, it is 
 
 * When I first began this book I merely intended to confine 
 myself to this part of the subject; I however found, as I went 
 on, that the different branches of physical knowledge are so in- 
 timately woven with each other, that it is difficult to understand 
 any one point properly without some knowledge of the whole. 
 I found it necessary, for example, to distinguish mere capacity, 
 or passivity from flexibility ; flexibility from elasticity; and finally 
 elasticity itself from expansibility, subsisting as an inherent power. 
 This explanation will, I hope, excuse me for the arrangement 
 in one part being somewhat different from what I should other- 
 wise have made. 
 
 not 
 
XVI 
 
 not caused by them ; and finally that gravity, 
 gravitation, or weight, is a relative, not a posi- 
 tive or absolute term ; that the gravity or weight 
 of a body altogether depends on the nature of 
 the medium in which it is placed; that instead 
 of extending beyond, is altogether confined to 
 it. I hope therefore to shew, that the ipse dixit 
 of Sir I. Newton, which constitutes his fourth 
 law of nature, is altogether unfounded, viz. that 
 allbodiesaremutually heavy and gravitate towards 
 each other; that this gravity is 'proportionate to 
 the quantity of matter \ and at unequal distances 
 is inverstely as the squares of the distances" 
 Although I am nearly prepared, I nevertheless 
 think it more prudent to delay publishing this 
 second part until the present one has gone 
 through the ordeal which it must suffer. I have 
 only to add that, whilst on the one hand I 
 shall feel grateful and thankful for fair and 
 liberal criticism, I shall however be ready to re- 
 pel, and to give the " retort courteous," to those 
 who impatient of contradiction, consider any in- 
 novation in long established systems as deserving 
 of condemnation, however contrary to common 
 sense they may be demonstratively proved. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 3N T THE PRINCIPLES OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 JlN order to prosecute to a successful termina- 
 tion any branch of science, it is of the utmost im- 
 portance, that we should be in full possession 
 of the first principles on which that science de- 
 pends, as causes from whence the effects pro- 
 ceed, and that the definitions employed should 
 be determinate and precise, expressive of the 
 thing signified. * This previous and antecedent 
 knowledge not only comprehends the existence 
 of the subject itself, and the terms by which its 
 
 b existence 
 
2 
 
 existence is known ; as that a human being is a 
 a biped, a horse a quadruped, &c. but the various 
 attributes belonging to it ; these attributes are 
 either inherent and essential, or accidental and 
 transient : these by some have been called ac- 
 cidents, by others secondary qualities. If the 
 nature of them were examined it would be found 
 that they owe their existence more to the agency 
 of external things than to any property resident 
 within them. It is not from the accidental colour 
 of the skin which different beings possess, whe- 
 ther pallid or red, by which the species in gene- 
 ral is characterized. The external colour may 
 be imitated by art on a lump of clay, or a block 
 of wood, upon a dead almost as perfectly as on 
 a living subject. It is to those permanent and 
 indelible attributes of organization and of form 
 of action, and of power, by which every indivi- 
 dual is known to be what it really is, and 
 through which it is distinguished from every 
 thing else. 
 
 Such was the state of barbarism and ignorance 
 which filled the human mind for more than a thou- 
 sand 
 
Tw-|^,. - l 
 
 sand years, and which has been in consequence de- 
 nominated the period of the dark ages, that know- 
 ledge, if knowledge it maybe called, was confined 
 to the schoolmen : the erroneous practice in gene- 
 ral, at that period, of reasoning without facts, 
 and drawing conclusions from false principles, 
 became at length apparent to that great lumi- 
 nary of our country, Lord Bacon. 
 
 The accumulation of error was at that time 
 too extensive to be corrected by any individual, 
 however mighty in intellect he might be sup- 
 posed. Instead of unravelling the gordian knot 
 he cut it. Instead of amusing himself with 
 solving the most absurd and ridiculous proposi- 
 tions that can be conceived; with calculating, 
 for example, how many millions of angels could 
 dance upon the point of a needle, he determin- 
 ed to accumulate facts only, before he gene- 
 ralized them, and the art of induction was rais- 
 ed on the ruins of false syllogism. 
 
 It is greatly to be deplored that the plan which 
 he himself pursued, has not been adhered to by 
 
 b 2 his 
 
his followers in general; that attention is not 
 so much paid to the simple observation of na- 
 tural phenomena as to those which are the re- 
 sults of sophisticated experiments. I do not 
 decry experiments in general, it is the abuse not the 
 use of them which I reprobate and condemn. 
 It is through the agency of experiment that the 
 useful arts have obtained such a high degree of 
 elegance and perfection; that chemistry, and 
 what is called experimental philosophy, in gene- 
 ral, are in a constant state of improvement, and 
 that the certainty of many uncertain things is 
 ascertained. Let it not, however, be supposed 
 that it is the result of experiment alone on which 
 the whole of our knowledge depends, or that it 
 was so considered by Lord Bacon himself; he 
 expressly ranks natural history to be the result 
 of simple observation, and classes it before ex- 
 perimental history. He considered it to be the . 
 iirst means which ought to be employed to ac- 
 complish the grand instauration, as he calls it, 
 which he had in view ; from induction, through 
 the medium of analysis, to establish principles; 
 from the individual to form the species, and from 
 
 the 
 
the species the genus ; from history by analysis 
 to obtain definitions, and proceeding from effects 
 to arrive at causes. 
 
 Had he been desirous to appeal to experiment 
 alone, he would have excluded the facts which 
 are the result of simple observation only ; if such 
 had been his principles of learning it would have 
 led, as it has been well observed, to the unwar- 
 rantable length of supposing that knowledge 
 could only be obtained through an artificial, rather 
 than through a natural channel, assisted by the 
 furnace and the crucible in the laboratory, to 
 make no use of our eyes unless with a candle 
 in our hands and spectacles on our nose, and 
 forced to withdraw our senses from the know- 
 ledge which they convey to the mind of the uu- 
 disturbed appearances of nature. 
 
 Instead however of appealing to simple ob- 
 servation for the apprehension of natural pheno- 
 mena, few phenomena are at this time supposed 
 or admitted to be true, unless proved by the 
 test of experiment; unnatural effects generally 
 
 r 3 preferred 
 
6 
 
 preferred before such as are natural and unso* 
 phisticated. The phenomena of disease are ad- 
 duced to explain the actions of health ; the che- 
 mical changes which dead and common matter 
 undergo are often assumed in order to account 
 for the causes and phenomena of life. 
 
 The error of endeavouring to account by 
 chemical, by hydraulic, and other mechanical 
 principles, for the phenomena of vital action, as 
 well as the principle of vitality itself, may be 
 assigned as the reason for the barbarous state 
 which physiology is in at the present day. 
 
 To the late Mr. J. Hunter, to Dr. Goodwin, 
 Spallanzani, and a few others we are eminently 
 indebted for many valuable facts obtained 
 through the medium of experiment performed on 
 living animals : these facts acquire their intrin- 
 sic worth, in consequence of exposing to our 
 view internal operations, which were before con- 
 cealed, and thereby manifesting the natural con- 
 dition of things without altering it. 
 
 Cruel 
 
Cruel and horrible as were these experiments 
 if they cannot be justified it is hoped that they 
 will find considerable palliation in the motive 
 which led to the execution of them ; — the earnest 
 hope which a few of these gentlemen entertain- 
 ed of bringing light out of darkness, and that 
 the sufferings of the brute might ultimately 
 prove beneficial to man. 
 
 Although humanity feels a pang at the re- 
 collection of such pursuits, they ought never- 
 thelss to be tolerated to a certain degree, when 
 performed by those who having an end in view, 
 are anxious to prove, by the fact of experiment, 
 the truth or error of the principles of physiolo- 
 gical science, which they may entertain. 
 
 To that numerous class of pretenders to phy- 
 siology, to those minpws in science, who with- 
 out end or design, are impelled by blind chance 
 and mere curiosity to inflict the most barbarous 
 cruelties in cold blood on warm blooded animals, 
 there is no excuse; more than for those who 
 mutilate and extirpate different organs out of 
 
 b 4 the 
 
a 
 
 the living system, in order to ascertain the na-^ 
 
 tural functions which those organs are intended 
 
 to perform, and the use which they are intend-* 
 ed to serve. I do not mean in other points to 
 
 depreciate the merit of many of those gentler 
 
 men; I value it because in many respects they 
 
 are entitled to praise. 
 
 When I hear, however, some of them arrogate 
 the claim of furnishing to the world all the phy^ 
 siological knowledge in it, and as if alone 
 qualified to discuss a physiological question, 
 receiving with slight, and considering as mere 
 drivellers those who take natural rather than aiv 
 tificial phenomena, and whom they call, as a 
 mark of contempt, closet philosopher, I confess 
 to feel amused with the folly of such conceits. 
 
 In order to appreciate the whole merit to 
 which they are entitled, it ought to be examin- 
 ed, and I am persuaded it will be found that 
 the reason of this conceit and pride arises in 
 consequence of mistaking art for science, the 
 man who carries the hod for the architect who 
 
 designs, 
 
9 
 
 designs, and confounding the labourer and 
 bellows-blower with the physiologist and meta- 
 physician, 
 
 I do not include the man who from a supe-r 
 riority of intellect, possesses a knowledge of 
 cause, foresees and foreknows the effects which 
 will inevitably follow, and is nevertheless anxious 
 to put his science to the test, and to prove the 
 truth of it by experiment. A philosopher such 
 as this is seldom qualified for the task of per- 
 forming it, he rather delegates the execution of 
 it to others than perform it himself. What 
 are the qualifications, I would ask, which 
 are requisite for the experimentalist in chemis 
 try, who is Ho accomplish the trial? There is 
 not, I am persuaded, an experienced artist in 
 any of our manufactories, who is not able to 
 mix the different ingredients which are intend- 
 ed to be employed, to blow the. bellows, and 
 even to decide on the result that ensues, as well 
 as the best chemist that has ever existed. 
 
 The 
 
10 
 
 The same limited means are alone wanting 
 in physiology ; there is not a lad of twenty years 
 of age, who comes from the country to any of 
 our hospitals in town, and who after passing 
 with common industry two seasons in any of 
 our anatomical schools, is not perfectly com- 
 petent to perform any physiological experiments; 
 in addition to a precise knowledge of position, 
 the only requisites wanting are a steady hand, a 
 sharp knife, a tolerable good pair of eyes, and 
 an unfeeling heart. 
 
 To rip open the flanks of a dog as well as of a 
 calf, to drag any particular organ out of its situation, 
 to paw and to squeeze it, to decide whether it swells 
 or contracts, whether it causes presure or not on 
 surrounding parts, to tie a ligature upon the 
 vessels or tubes with which any organ is sup- 
 plied, or to extirpate the organ altogether, and 
 finally cut the animals throat and strip the skin 
 for the sake of the leather, can, I am persuaded 
 be performed as perfectly by any carcase but- 
 cher in any slaughter house, as by the generali- 
 ty of physiologists ; and 1 am of opinion that 
 
 the 
 
11 
 
 the execution of a job such as this, which is 
 performed in less than an hour's time, which re- 
 quires neither genius, judgement, or skill, would 
 be most amply remunerated by the receipt of 
 one shilling, and perhaps a pint of small beer as 
 an act of generosity.* 
 
 * In order to justify myself from exaggeration, and to enable 
 the reader to decide for himself, how far I am justified in 
 saying that the degrees of talent necessary to perform an experi- 
 ment are very trifling, and that it is generally done with a degree 
 pf qold blooded apathy which is shocking to humanity, I shall 
 relate one, amongst a multitude of similar experiments, that 
 were made on living dogs, in order to ascertain the change of 
 colour which the blood underwent during the process of inspira- 
 tion. " I procured several large dogs," says one of the gentle- 
 men, " and after removing the sternum or breast bone of each, and 
 exposing to view the trunks of thepulmonary arteries and veins, &c. 
 &c." by another, and he by far the most eminent of all, after 
 going through the preliminary operation of cutting the parie- 
 tcs of the thorax, and sawing the ribs, and exposing to view the 
 organs which it contains, says " I have repeated this experiment 
 several times upon several animals, and commonly for half an 
 hour at a lime; which was sufficient to allow me to make my 
 observations with coolness and accuracy; it was curious to see 
 in the first part of the experiment, the coronary arteries turn 
 barker and darker; but on blowing air into the lungs the blood 
 gradually resumed the florid red. 1 cut and sliced offa piece from 
 the lungs, and found that the colour of the blood which came 
 from the wound corresponded with the above effect." 
 
 Men 
 
12 
 
 Men such as these, however qualified they 
 may be to act well, seldom think correctly. If 
 I were to go into particulars, I could easily 
 prove that the premises which they assume con- 
 sisting for the most part of the mutilated and un- 
 natural condition of things, can seldom convey 
 to the mind data fit for physiological science; 
 that the conclusions which they draw, however 
 true they may be from the principles, are most er- 
 
 I should not have dwelt upon this subject, had I not known 
 that the piactice of torturing animals amongst young men is be- 
 come of late very much the fashion ; such are the tender mercies 
 which they have for themselves; and in order to prevent the poor 
 creatures from the onty consolation left them, of expressing, by 
 their cries, the anguish which they suffer, they first begin by cutting 
 and 'dividing the nerves which subserve to the motion of the 
 tongue and lower jaw, and by that means prevent the animal 
 from howling. 
 
 This piece of humanity is exactly analogous to that which 
 Santerre possessed : during the massacrees in Paris, in theeariy part 
 of the French revolution; at that he was commanding officer of the 
 national guard, and it was in his power to have prevented the multi- 
 tude of beings from being sacrificed ; he however remained quietly 
 at table whilst innocent blood flowed in torrents: one of his 
 satellites, by accident, put his foot on the tail of a little dog 
 situated under the table, which occasioned the dog to squeak, 
 Santerre in great agony reproached with bitterness the inhuma- 
 nity and cruelty of the fellow for making the poor animal suffer. 
 
 neous 
 
13 
 
 roneousin themselves, so far as relates to the thing 
 which they are intended to explain. 
 
 The system of induction introduced by Lord 
 Bacon, had not for its end, as many of his un- 
 worthy followers have supposed, the mere ab- 
 stract accumulation of facts; facts, isolated and 
 unconnected, resemble the rough and raw r ma- 
 terials which may be intended for the founda- 
 tion of the most magnificent edifice; it is not 
 however the carpenter who chips the timber, or 
 mason who scrubs the roughness of the marble 
 and gives it a polish, who are to be considered 
 as the men of science, but him alone who from 
 precise knowledge of principles and of jscJesefc, 
 is able to direct those materials to be arranged 
 with symmetry into order and form. 
 
 Had his lordship limited his views to induc- 
 tion only, or had he cherished an hope through 
 a multitude of forced and unnatural effects, that 
 he would ever be able to establish true principles 
 of science, instead of being the father of true 
 
 philosophy, 
 
14 
 
 philosophy, as he has been called i he would 
 have been its greatest enemy* 
 
 In the analysis of facts which are intended 
 to constitute the principles of any science, 
 it is of the first importance that none should 
 be admitted but such as are scientifically effici- 
 ent of the conclusion; that we should separate 
 partial from* general facts, accidental and tran- 
 scient attributes from those that are permanent 
 and essential. It is by a process such as this 
 that we become possessed of those individual 
 facts which form the base and the source of every 
 science, the immediate and proximate cause 
 from whence effects are derived. It is by the 
 enumeration of these attributes, which always 
 abiding in the subject to which they belong, 
 apply universally to every individual of the 
 species, characterise its nature, and distin- 
 guish it from a body belonging to every other 
 class : w ithout the full possession of these per- 
 manent and universal facts, a general, not a par- 
 ticular knowledge, of any subject can ever be 
 obtained : without history we can never have de- 
 finition, 
 
15 
 
 finition, and without axiom there can be no 
 science. 
 
 It is from principles such as these, of self 
 evident truth, on which the whole mathema- 
 tical science is founded, as well as every other 
 branch which deserves the name of science. 
 Without the possession of these first principles 
 it has ever appeared to me impossible that 
 we can obtain any science of the phenomena 
 which are produced; without them a general, 
 not a particular knowledge may be acquired; 
 we may become historians but not philosophers, 
 good artists but not men of science : knowledge 
 properly so called, does not simply consist in 
 the impressions made on the senses by the ope- 
 ration of external phenomena ; true knowledge 
 can only be admitted to exist when we are in 
 full possession of the cause from whence the ef- 
 fects are derived, and he alone can be denomi- 
 nated the man of science, who is able to connect 
 the cause and the effect together. 
 
 These 
 
16 
 
 These principles are not only more powerful 
 and true than the thing produced, but the actual 
 cause of its production : they possess the power 
 of imparting their own efficacy and energy to the 
 bodies on which they operate, and constitute the 
 science from whence secondary effects are made 
 to flow; by which the principles of life, for ex- 
 ample, which is resident in the semina of plants, 
 or in the ova of animals, is enabled to act on 
 matter dead and common, and to con£e#t it to 
 a living state, by which the sun, as the principle 
 and fountain of light becomes the primary cause 
 of illumination in general ; by which the expan- 
 sibility of air is enabled to excite motion in 
 matter passive and inert. In every instance 
 it appears to me necessary that no fact whatever 
 should be admitted as a principle, but such as is 
 scientifically efficient to produce the conclusion, 
 so that the effect produced should always cor- 
 respond to the nature of the producing cause.* 
 
 * I am not speaking at present of the changes which take 
 place in bodies by the agency of chemical means, by which the 
 effect produced participates of the nature of the several mate- 
 rials which may have been employed j I confine myself at pre- 
 
 Al- 
 
17 
 
 Although it is unquestionably true that there 
 exists several different sciences that may be said 
 to belong to one and the same genus, in which 
 the principles of the one may be legitimately 
 transferred to the other, it is nevertheless very 
 seldom the case. Principles of science do not 
 emigrate, as migratory birds are in the habit of 
 doing, at different seasons, to different countries ; 
 individual sciences, for the most parr; have 
 belonging to them their own facts and their own 
 principles ; the conduct of those who take false 
 analogies for the explanation of the same phe- 
 nomena, and the principles of dissimilar sciences, 
 with a view of accounting for the effects which 
 are produced in those to which they have no re- 
 lation, cannot be too strongly reprobated and 
 condemned. 
 
 If the mere capacity which appertains to dif- 
 ferent species of common matter, or even the 
 chemical power which it may be supposed to 
 
 sent lo the physical and natural power which different bodies 
 possess of acting upon others without being acted upon by 
 them. 
 
 c possess, 
 
18 , 
 
 possess, were employed, as is too often the case, 
 in order to account for the cause of vitality, if in 
 the animated system, the principles of hydraulics 
 were employed to account for the motion of the 
 fluids, those of pneumatics for the process of res- 
 piration ; in short, if the principles of chemical 
 science were advanced in order to prove the na- 
 ture of vital action in general, and of ratiocination 
 in particular facts or principles, such as these, 
 would unquestionably be false. The same con- 
 clusions may be made if the principles of vitality 
 in plants were adduced to prove the principles of 
 instinct in brutes ; or the principles of instinct 
 in brutes employed to ascertain the nature of 
 intellect in man. Facts such as these, having 
 no reference whatever to the particular subject 
 which they were intended to demonstrate, and 
 being in themselves inefficient and defective to 
 prove the conclusion; that is to say, that the 
 principle of intellect in man cannot be proved 
 by the nature of brutal instinct, more than 
 the vitality of plants proved from the chemical 
 properties of matter dead and common ; facts 
 such as these, when employed as principles, 
 
 must 
 
19 
 
 must ever be considered as false, and in such a 
 case physiology and physics, chemistry and me- 
 taphysics would be confounded together. 
 
 The same may be said if the facts which apper- 
 tain to vision, were employed io account for the 
 cause of hearing, and those of taste by the mouth 
 with those which belong to the olfactory sense, 
 &c. 
 
 If T proceed from physiological to mechanical 
 sciences, the same observations will equally ap- 
 ply if the principles of hydraulics were employ- 
 ed to account for the effects produced in pneu- 
 matics, and even if those of pneumatics were 
 advanced to prove the nature of optics, such 
 facts would be false ; as false as if we were to 
 confound the facts which appertain to time 
 with those that belong to place, figures with lines 
 and lines with figures, and attempt to prove mag- 
 nitude by numbers or numbers by magnitude, 
 and confound geometry and arithmetic together; 
 it would seem to have been for the express pur- 
 pose of guarding against this great error, 
 that Sir Isaac Newton, in his universal arithme- 
 
 c 2 tic, 
 
20 
 
 tic, praises the ancients for not deducing geo- 
 metrical conclusions from arithmetical princi- 
 ples, and for not confounding geometry and 
 arithmetic together. " Each of these sciences,' * 
 says he, "possessing principles peculiar to it- 
 self, and distinct from other sciences." What 
 other construction can these words bear, than 
 that he who employs the primary and perma- 
 nent facts which constitute the principles, or the 
 axioms (as I may call them) of every indivi- 
 dual science, in order to account for the effects 
 which are produced by the power of the facts 
 or principles belonging to another, between 
 which there is no analogy whatever takes, false 
 facts for his data. False facts may therefore be 
 considered facts which are assumed as false 
 principles, false causes to which effects are im- 
 properly referred: the phrase by the driveller 
 will either be misunderstood or by him consi- 
 dered as an absurdity; by the ignorant in science, 
 as contrary to appearances, but not an absolute 
 contradiction, as a paradox but not a non-en- 
 tity; by the man of real science the phrase will 
 be admitted as legitimate and appropriate, and 
 
 be 
 
21 
 
 be by him constantly appealed to as the true and 
 primary cause of error, and of mistake, not only 
 at the beginning but at its end; and he will 
 ascribe to false facts the mass of false philoso- 
 phy which continues to prevail at this day. 
 
 I have perhaps dwelt longer on this subject 
 than was necessary; I was, however, led to it in 
 consequence of the complete ignorance which 
 the subject appeared to be involved in by those 
 who ought, from their situation, to have been bet- 
 ter instructed ; the idea of false facts by them was 
 not only decried but attempted to be ridiculed. 
 
 Having endeavoured to shew what true prin- 
 ciples are, and what false principles are not ; 
 I shall now proceed to point out the errors 
 of taking false analogies as principles of sci- 
 ence: wherever an uniformity of nature and 
 of character exists between different bodies 
 analogy becomes a legitimate source of induc- 
 tion, it is from the analogy which subsists,be- 
 tween the phenomena of life and health, of dis- 
 
 c 3 ease 
 
22 
 
 ease and death in plants, that these may often be 
 employed to illustrate the correspondent changes 
 which take place in brutes as well as in the hu- 
 man species ; and also when a similarity of na- 
 ture exists between bodies whose functions are 
 the same, however dissimilar they may be in 
 structure and appearance. By analogy we pre- 
 dicate the same attributes to the gills of fish as 
 i to the lungs of the mammalia, to the ovaries of 
 a sprat and of a whale, as we do to the ovary 
 of a rabbit or of an elephant. And it is be- 
 cause geometry defines many of the assumptions 
 and suppositions of the science of optics, as 
 well as of other sciences that might be stated, 
 why analogy between them may often be adr 
 mitted. 
 
 Analogy maybe admitted throughout the vari- 
 ous species of common matter which exists, 
 whose nature and properties are the same, how- 
 ever different in appearance they may be ; be- 
 tween the capacity of a lump of clay and of a piece 
 of flint, between the flexibility of lead and of iron, 
 between the elasticity of steel and of whalebone, 
 
 and 
 
23 
 
 and between the expansibilityof gases in general 
 however different. The reason why analogy 
 between these different genera is admissible is 
 this, that however different their particular 
 properties may be, they nevertheless always con- 
 tinue to retain the same generic character ; al- 
 though the chemical characters of particular 
 gases are proved to be totally different from 
 others, all however are expansible; the same 
 may be said of elastic, and of flexible bodies 
 also. 
 
 In bodies such as these Sir Isaac Newton's 
 second rule of philosophizing may apply, that 
 " of natural effects of the same kind the same 
 causes are to be assigned:" It must however 
 be very obvious that this rule can never be ap- 
 plied to bodies whose nature and properties 
 are essentially different from each other, and 
 between which no analogy whatever exists. 
 It must appear most obvious that no ana- 
 logy can exist between bodies whose nature 
 and properties are essentially different; and that 
 
 c 4 the 
 
24 
 
 the predications which belong to one cannot be 
 applied to the other. It is not legitimate to make 
 analogy between flexible and elastic, more than 
 between elastic and expansible bodies; much 
 less between matter which is ponderable or 
 dark, and such as is imponderable and lumin- 
 ous; that is passive and opake, and that which 
 is essentially active and transparent; between 
 a cloud of dust and the rays of light, between 
 the natural obscurity of this globe of earth and 
 the illumination and splendor of the sun. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE NATURE AND PROPERTIES OF MATTER 
 IN GENERAL. 
 
 XF we were to take a particular review of the 
 system of nature we should be led to conclude 
 that a regular chain of order and of subordina- 
 tion subsists, not only throughout the various 
 classes of animated beings it contains, but be- 
 tween the different parts of the common matter 
 of which it is composed. The analogy which 
 subsists between the different links of this 
 vast chain is so close, and the gradation so 
 imperceptible and easy, that it is often very 
 difficult to say at what point the one ends 
 and the other begins; what are the precise 
 
 marks 
 
26 
 
 marks by which some parts of the animal 
 kingdom are distinguished from the vegetable, 
 some species of the vegetable from the mineral, 
 until its final termination into matter the most 
 formless and common. 
 
 Great and striking as the similitude may be 
 between the parts, there nevertheless subsist 
 shades of difference throughout the whole ; in- 
 somuch that when the extremes are compared, 
 instead of analogy there is a total difference be- 
 tween them. 
 
 Owing to the obvious difference in the sensible 
 properties which different bodies display, differ- 
 ent arrangements of them have been made, and 
 the whole of the material world has been classed 
 under three different orders, or kingdoms, into 
 animal, vegetable, and mineral. 
 
 A generalization such as this, appears to me 
 highly objectionable, because extremely defec- 
 tive. Instead of comprehending the whole it ex- 
 cludes a.part, it excludes that immense and in- 
 definite 
 
27 
 
 definite portion of matter, which, instead of be- 
 ing mined and immured within the bowels of 
 the earth, subsists for the most part out of it; 
 it not only excludes water, and gaseous bodies 
 in general, but the whole planetary system in 
 particular. 
 
 I shall therefore class the whole system of na- 
 ture, as it has been called, and the matter of which 
 it is composed under three distinct heads, — of 
 common, — of living, — and of dead matter. 
 
 First, By common matter I mean the primitive 
 or original materials or elements of which theworld 
 is composed ; matter which either has never re- 
 ceived the participation of life, or having receiv- 
 ed has lost it, and been resolved back into a 
 a common state. 
 
 Secondly, By living matter I comprehend the 
 various orders of living beings, with which the 
 universe is replenished and adorned. 
 
 Thirdly,By dead matter I confine myself to the 
 exuviae of animals and of vegetables ; as well as to 
 
23 
 
 the whole substance of which these beings are 
 composed after the actions of life are at an end, and 
 the state present known by the appellation of 
 death. 
 
 Among the first advances that were made of 
 putting confusion into order, of arranging the in- 
 finite multitude of individuals to particular 
 species, and different species to particular genera, 
 may be mentioned the art of analysis. By ana- 
 lysis the attributes which individuals in common 
 possess, are solved. Classifications of them are 
 formed to which those individuals,according to the 
 general character and mode of subsistence, may 
 easily be referred, as they severally exist in a 
 solid, a liquid, or a gaseous state. 
 
 To ascertain the nature of these attributes, 
 
 the relation which they bear to each other, the 
 
 changes which they undergo, and finally to trace 
 
 the phenomena, or effects, to their producing 
 
 causes, constitute the objects which physical 
 
 science is designed to explore, and become the 
 
 true pursuit of a natural philosopher. 
 
 To 
 
29 
 
 To physiology the province belongs of inves- 
 tigating the properties of living matter. To 
 physics such as is dead or common. Correspon- 
 dent to the difference of character which sub- 
 sits in matter dead or common, whether solid, 
 liquid, or gaseous, a subdivision in the science 
 of physics is made. Geology refers to the solid and 
 common matter of which the world is composed. 
 Hydrology to liquid, and meteorology to that 
 which subsists in a gaseous or aeriform state ; 
 and finally, chemistry is designed to examine 
 and to ascertain the more intimate and particu- 
 lar qualities which each substance possesses, 
 and the changes it undergoes by union and com- 
 bination; the means employed are those of ana- 
 lysis and synthesis. 
 
 It is not my present intention to enter into a 
 chemical investigation of the subject, I mean 
 more especially to confine myself to an enquiry 
 into the essential and individual properties which 
 subsist in each, by virtue of which the mechani- 
 cal changes which those bodies undergo, are to 
 be ascertained. 
 
 Although 
 
30 
 
 Although their natural properties are obvi- 
 ously and sensibly different, and that an infinite 
 variety of changes in them are perpetually taking 
 place, that the most solid bodies are often liqui- 
 fied into a fluid, and subtilized into vapour, that 
 vapours are often condensed into a liquid, and 
 even into a solid form: in whatever state how- 
 ever, these bodies may exist, every particle 
 possesses one attribute common to the whole, 
 the attribute of extension; extension into length, 
 breadth, and thickness. 
 
 If we proceed from this attribute, universal to 
 the attributes particular, which different bodies 
 possess, we shall find them to be totally differ- 
 ent from each other, and that a great diversity 
 of changes between them are constantly taking 
 place; a distinction ought therefore to be made 
 between the natural and unnatural state in which 
 any portion of matter exists ; between the 
 change which is produced and the cause pro- 
 ducing it, between passion (passivity) and ac- 
 tion, capacity and power. 
 
 So 
 
31 
 
 So totally and absolutely inert is the solid mat- 
 ter of which the world is composed, that it pos- 
 sesses within itself no power by which it can 
 act, neither the mass altogether more than the 
 smallest particle of sand would alter in form or 
 in position, unless it were acted upon by agents 
 external to itself. It is in consequence of this 
 natural tendency to remain permanently the same, 
 that solid matter is said to be imbecil and inert, of- 
 fering resistance alone to the action of those bodies 
 by which it may be assailed : it is to this natural 
 property of solid matter to which the term im- 
 mobility ought especially to be applied. 
 
 Whenever solid matter is acted upon and the 
 resistance which it opposes is overcome, the 
 changes which it is made to undergo perpetual- 
 ly wear away, the matter gradually verges from 
 the state of activity into which it had been ex- 
 cited, into the passive and quiescent state which 
 is natural to it : this is the end which invariably 
 takes place when one mass of solid matter is 
 made to act upon another, the first loses as 
 much of its own motion as it imparts to the 
 
 second, 
 
32 
 
 second, insomuch that the quantity of change 
 which is excited in the one, entirely depends 
 on the quantity of power communicated from 
 the other. This capacity to be acted upon, this 
 indifference to motion or rest is called mobility 
 and the change which the body undergoes dur- 
 ing the transition from one place to another is 
 called motion.* 
 
 The effect which is produced by a moving 
 power on a solid substance, altogether depends 
 on the nature of its construction. If it cracks or 
 breaks without yielding it is said tobebrittle,such 
 as glass or flint. When a body yields with- 
 out cracking it is considered as flexible, this is 
 the case with lead, with iron, and with a variety 
 of other bodies which it is unnecessary for me 
 to detail. 
 
 This capacity to be bent by the agency of ex- 
 ternal forces, which particular bodies contain, 
 
 * " It is surprising Mr. Locke should have misapplied, as he 
 has done, the term mobility, and confounded capacity and power 
 together. Mobility he calls a power to be moved, instead of a 
 capacity or aptitude to be moved. In like manner Sir Isaac 
 Newton calls it a vis inertia?. 
 
 without 
 
33 
 without possessing any inherent power of un- 
 bending themselves, is therefore called flexi- 
 bility; or as Dr. Johnson expresses it " the qua- 
 lity of admitting to be bent." The nature of 
 this capacity to be acted upon is exemplified in 
 a common piece of iron or of wood. The particles 
 of matter of which these substances are composed 
 are unable to resist the power which acts upon 
 them. The inferior strata become contracted, 
 the upper lengthened, both are distorted and 
 bent, and finally if the external force be encreas- 
 ed beyond a certain point, the bond of conti- 
 nuity between the individual particles, becomes 
 separated and the iron or wood snaps or breaks. 
 The whole effect which has been thus produced, 
 is evidently to be referred, not to a power resi- 
 dent in the iron or wood, but to the agency of 
 the external force impressed upon them ; it was 
 resistance overcome by overcoming force. 
 
 ■ 
 
 This capacity of admitting to be bent and to 
 
 be moved by an external force, extends to 
 
 other bodies which have the power of restoring 
 
 themselves to their former situation, after the 
 
 t> external 
 
34 
 
 external force is removed, through the agency 
 of which they had been made flexible : bodies 
 such as these are called elastic; of this description 
 may be enumerated steel, whalebone, catgut, &c. 
 &c. The distinction therefore which exists be- 
 tween elasticity and flexibility consists in this, 
 elasticity has the capacity to be ben t and the power 
 to restore itself to its natural and original situa- 
 tion from whence it had been forcibly distorted, 
 and withheld; whilst flexibility on the contrary 
 has the capacity to be bent only, without the 
 power of unbending itself. Dr. Johnson, there- 
 fore, with that wonderful power of discrimina- 
 tion which on every occasion he is found to 
 possess, very properly defines elasticity to con- 
 sist of a " force in bodies by which they endea- 
 vour to restore themselves to the position from 
 whence they were displaced by an external 
 forced By the substraction of which, such is 
 the peculiarity in the arrangement of which the 
 elastic substance is composed, that it has the 
 power of returning back to the position it was 
 in before, in which condition it remains. 
 
 That 
 
33 
 
 That the return to its original situation only 
 of the elastic body by the substraction of the 
 external force, is the true meaning and applica- 
 tion of the word elasticity, is further proved by Sir 
 Isaac Newton. In his book on optics he says, 
 " when a body is compact, and bends or yields 
 inward to pressure, without any sliding of its 
 parts, it is hard and elastic, returning to its figure 
 with a force arising from the united attraction 
 of its parts." If we therefore examine the defini- 
 tion of the word elasticity as given by Johnson 
 and illustrated by Newton, and as it is generally 
 used at this day, we must conclude that it is 
 not only retained within the narrow limits to 
 which the fibres are confined, but that it is never 
 exerted without the intervention of external 
 power impressed upon it. Elasticity conse- 
 quently consists of two properties, of weak; ess 
 and of power, of passion and of action, of suf- 
 fering to be, and of becoming to be, of flexibility 
 through the agency of external force, and se- 
 condly of re-action from internal and inherent 
 construction, as when Shakespear says, " when 
 splitting winds, make flexible the knees of 
 
 d 2 knotted 
 
36 
 
 knotted oaks;" the splitting winds constitute 
 the external cause, by which the flexible knees 
 of knotted oaks were made to bend. Such how- 
 ever is the internal construction of the fibres oi 
 which the oak is composed, that they are able 
 to return back to their original state, as soon as 
 the splitting winds have ceased to rage. 
 
 It is this dead capacity of being acted upon, 
 and of being changed without the power of re- 
 sisting action, of being moved without the power 
 of moving itself, of being modelled without 
 the power of modelling itself, which consti- 
 tutes the mobility of Locke, the vis inertiae of 
 Newton, the flexibility and elasticity of our mo- 
 dern philosophers.* 
 
 * " This capacity to be acted upon is proved in a manner the 
 most decisive, by the commutation total and compleat which 
 food undergoes, not only with respect to quantity but to quality 
 also ; not only with respect to configuration in general, but to 
 essential properties in particular, by the digestive and assimilating 
 organs, with which animals and vegetables are endowed. Hav- 
 ing detailed at considerable length the nature and relation which 
 subsist between capacity and power in my system of physiolo- 
 gy ; to that work, I must refer the reader, if he be desirous to 
 understand the nature and power of life in converting the capa- 
 
 if 
 
37 
 
 If I proceed from flexible and elastic bodies, 
 to consider the attributes of those which are 
 essentially expansible, although they possess in 
 common with the former, the capacity to be 
 be bent into different forms, and even to be 
 compressed from a larger to a smaller volume, by 
 the agency of an external force, they neverthe- 
 less differ from both in points the most essen- 
 tial ; instead of requiring the agency of external 
 pressure, in order that they may be enabled to 
 unbend and expand, external pressure alone is 
 the means by which this expansive power is 
 bounded and confined ; instead of being like 
 flexible and elastic bodies naturally passive and 
 inert, they are naturally elastic and expansible ; 
 elastic by pressure, expansible without it. The in- 
 stant external pressure is removed, this ex- 
 pansive power is immediately developed from its 
 confinement and displayed by its activity, 
 spreading and dilating to the utmost limits which 
 
 city of matter from a dead to a living state, from a state of dis- 
 persion to a state of combination, from a multitude of parts into 
 one organized system, endowed with animation and action." 
 
 d 3 ima- 
 
38 
 
 imagination can conceive, communicating mo. 
 tion to the mobility of particular bodies, and 
 pressure to all, 
 
 It is this original and essential power which 
 abiding in gaseous and aeriform bodies, gives 
 them the generic character of expansibility, 
 strictly so called; which identifies their nature 
 and designates them from those belonging to 
 every other class. The distinctions between 
 them are as great as they are important ; the 
 jnotic-n or force which is manifested by steel 
 and other bodies considered as elastic, is al- 
 together produced by the unnatural direction 
 given to the particles of matter of which they 
 are composed; the expansibility of gaseous 
 bodies proceeds from the spontaneous and na- 
 tural tendency inherent in them. In the one the 
 direction of the motion always corresponds to 
 the particular direction of the particles of mat- 
 ter of which the elastic substance is constituted. 
 In the other the dilatation which takes place ex- 
 tends equally in every direction. In the former 
 the degree of motion produced is confined 
 
 within 
 
39 
 
 within the narrowest limits ; in the latter the 
 expansibility is indefinite in its extent ; whilst 
 external force is necessary to make an elastic body 
 expansible; it is by the substraction of an ex- 
 ternal force that expansible bodies are enabled 
 to expand. Elasticity therefore is merely vi 
 effecto, a power derived, not essential, an excit- 
 ed not inherent power, which immediately ceases 
 as soon as the compressing cause is removed. 
 
 In matter, however, which is essentially ex- 
 pansible, it is far otherwise, instead of vi 
 effecto, it is causa motus ; not derived from with^ 
 out, but which subsists inherently within ; not 
 produced by external means, it is through 
 the resistance alone, opposed by external 
 means that this expansive power can be sus- 
 pended or suppressed. The difference may be 
 proved by simply placing a flexible, an elastic and 
 an expansible body together, under the same 
 relative situations ; if a small portion of air en- 
 closed in a large bladder is placed under the 
 receiver of an air pump with a piece of lead or 
 steel, the change which the air undergoes is to- 
 tally different from that of the other two. In 
 
 d 4 
 
40 
 
 proportion as the air within the receiver exter- 
 nal to these bodies is abstracted by exhaustion ; 
 it is found that neither the steel nor lead under- 
 go any change whatever ; on the contrary the 
 air within the bladder dilates and expands to 
 its utmost extent. What the extent is to which 
 air may be expanded, can only be proved by the 
 effect which it produces. 
 
 However difficult may be the task to bring 
 such an enquiry to a successful conclusion, we 
 may nevertheless form some notion of the de- 
 gree, by the rapidity of its motion, and the resis- 
 tance which it is capable to overcome. Mr. Boyle 
 is of opinion that it was capable of expanding in 
 the proportion of one to one thousand times ; that is 
 to say, that one cubic foot of air, when external 
 pressure is removed, is capable of dilating and 
 filling the space often thousand feet: by others 
 this calculation is considered far too limit- 
 ed. Sir Isaac Newton, in particular, considers 
 it almost indefinite ; extending perhaps to one 
 millionth fX*T of its original bulk. If we re- 
 flect for a moment on the energy which a 
 
 power 
 
41 
 
 power such as this must exert, we shall be at 
 no loss to conceive the resistance which it is 
 capable to overcome ; we shall be at no loss to 
 conceive how it is that the air which is extricated 
 from animal and vegetable bodies during the pro- 
 cess of putrefaction and fermentation, has the 
 power to separate and decompose the whole in- 
 to parts, and finally to resolve those parts from 
 a dead to a common state; that corks are 
 ejected from bottles, and the bottles themselves 
 are fissured and broken to pieces, in which ef- 
 fervessing liquors are contained ; that the small 
 quantity of air which is extricated from gun- 
 powder during the process of detonation is en- 
 abled to sap and to undermine the strongest 
 fortifications ; to project out of the mouth of a can- 
 non a ball to the immense distance of two or 
 three miles ; to explode the strongest shell from 
 a mortar; to burst it into pieces, and carry 
 death and destruction to surrounding objects. 
 
 In the various and multiplied discussions on 
 this subject, which I have had with numbers 
 ©f scientific men, and more especially with 
 
 many 
 
42 
 
 many of my particular friends, who fill the 
 teacher's chair in some of our most celebrated 
 schools of science in this metropolis, I have not 
 found an individual amongst the whole mass 
 who had any conception of expansibility subsist- 
 in gas an inherent and essential power, — of expan- 
 sibility, independently of resistance. The ut- 
 most extent of the knowledge they possess was 
 limited to re-action alone ; to that sort of power 
 which is derived in consequence of external 
 pressure. It will perhaps appear still more as- 
 tonishing that a distinction so strong, and so well 
 defined should not only have been overlooked, 
 but that scarcely any of them at this moment 
 are willing to admit it 
 
 It appears very probable to me that the pre- 
 sent prejudices are the mere result of former 
 errors, handed down to us through the medium 
 of Professor Gravesand, and other commenta- 
 tors on Sir Isaac Newton's laws of nature, as 
 they have been called, who was the original legatee. 
 So far, however, from considering these laws to be 
 laws of nature; from all the attention which 
 
 I have 
 
43 
 
 I have been able to give them, I am bound to 
 declare that they are mere assertions, contrary 
 to nature ; mere abstract terms, which require a 
 condition of things that in nature does not 
 exist, but which nevertheless is to be p re-sup* 
 posed.* 
 
 That Sir Isaac Newton's third law of nature 
 should apply, in order that re-action may be 
 always equal and contrary to action ; that is, 
 that the action of two bodies upon each other 
 may be always equal and in contrary direc- 
 tions. (Lex III . Actioni contrariam sempererit et 
 aequalem esse reactionem ; sive corporum duorum 
 actiones in se mutuo semper esse aequales et in 
 partes contrarias dirigi.) It is absolutely neces- 
 sary to suppose what is not, for the purpose of 
 proving what is: it is necessary not only to sup- 
 pose that space should subsist without matter, 
 or matter without resistance; but that throughout 
 
 * It is not my present intention, whatever I may be disposed 
 hereafter to do, to enter into a formal examination of these laws, 
 I shall merely notice them so far as I find them connected with 
 my present subject, and operating against it. This reason wilt 
 account for inverting the order of them, and for taking notice of 
 the third law before the first and second, 
 
 the 
 
44 
 
 the system of nature either one species of matter 
 alone should exist, or if different, that it should 
 possess the same property, or at least the same 
 power* 
 
 If such were actually the case, the consequences 
 
 * Sir Isaac Newton supposed, that the original construction 
 of matter was solid, massy, impenetrable; that these solid primi- 
 tive particles are incomparably harder than any porous bodies 
 composed of them, and that they were so hard as never to break in 
 pieces. Whilst the particles continue entire they may compose 
 bodies of one and the same nature and texture,in all ages ; but 
 should they wear away or break in pieces, the nature of all things 
 depending on them would be changed. Water and earth compos- 
 ed of old worn out particles, and fragments of particles, would 
 not now be of the same texture with water and earth composed 
 of entire particles in the beginning ; and therefore in order that 
 nature may be lasting, the change of corporeal things is to be 
 placed in the various separations and new associations and mo- 
 tions of these permanent particles. Compound bodies being apt to 
 break, not in the midst of solid particles, but when these particles 
 are laid together and touch in a few parts : these particles have 
 not only a vis inertia? accompanied with such laws of motion as 
 naturally result from that force, but also are moved by certain 
 active principles, as gravity, and that which causes the fermen- 
 tation and the cohesion of bodies. The principles are not to be 
 considered as occult qualities, supposed the result from the speci- 
 fic form of things, but as grand laws of nature, by which the 
 things themselves are formed, their truth appearing to us by 
 phenomena, though the cause is not yet discovered, 
 
 the 
 
45 
 
 would inevitably be that all the matter of which 
 the universe is composed, would either be all 
 passivity or all activity; all inertness or all 
 power; it is far otherwise — in the system of na- 
 ture we behold matter of different kinds which sub- 
 sits, possessing different capacities and different 
 powers.* Some species that are totally active and 
 energetic, others that are totally passive and inert ; 
 some that move, others that are moved ; some 
 that combine, others that cannot resist combina- 
 tion. We behold, for example, the matter of 
 light, of fire, and of air, in a state of constant 
 activity, whilst on the contrary the liquid, and 
 more especially the solid part of which the world 
 is composed is imbecile and inert. It is by vir- 
 tue of the difference which exists in the nature 
 of matter, that the variety of changes, which are 
 
 * By capacity I mean something which is passive only, and 
 by power something which is active and efficient. Capacity may 
 be said to bear the same relation to power, as the obedience of a ser- 
 vant to the will of his master, as children to their parents, as 
 loyal subjects to the laws of the government under which they 
 live, and as the universe in general to the Deity omnipotent, by 
 whose infinite power it is governed and controuled. 
 
 constantly 
 
46 
 
 constantly taking place throughout the system 
 of the world, are evidently to be referred. In the 
 investigation of action therefore in general, whe- 
 ther original or derived, it is absolutely necessary 
 to ascertain the nature of the means rather than 
 of the end, of the cause, more than of the effect; 
 when the resistance is equal or greater than the 
 body acting, the resisting body continues pas- 
 sive and at rest; when the power is greater than 
 the resistance the body moves ; the degree of 
 motion produced is the proof or test, which sub- 
 sists of the power in the one of overcoming the 
 resistance of the other ; so far however from ac- 
 tion requiring resistance, as is generally supposed, 
 it is resistance alone that diminishes and ultimate- 
 ly destroys action. Hence it is that bodies move 
 slower in a liquid than in a gaseous medium; fas- 
 faster through a liquid than through a solid one. # 
 
 • Professor Gravesand ridicules the idea that action is possible 
 to exist without resistance, for who, says lie, can conceive the pos- 
 bility of action without an obstacle; soon after however he al- 
 lows resistance to be an impediment to action. From these 
 palpable contradictions the following corollary is deduced, that 
 the force and the resistance are equal to one another. 
 
 Notwithstand- 
 
47 
 
 Notwithstanding' this most obvious truth, it 
 is neverthless contended by Sir Isaac Newton 
 that motion produced in different bodies, is oc- 
 casioned by a mutuality of power, subsisting 
 between them. The assertion is evidently true so 
 far as it relates to motion created by impulse, and 
 the fact accords with the assertion, not only that 
 the degree of motion but the mutation is always 
 proportionate to the force impressed, and is al- 
 ways made according to that right line in which 
 that force is impressed. This declaration of a 
 fact, is by Sir Isaac Newton converted into a 
 law, and constitutes the second law of his Prin- 
 cipia. " Mutationem motus proportionalem esse 
 vi motrici impressae et fieri secundum lineam 
 rectam qua vis ilia imprimitur." 
 
 With respect to bodies which possess power 
 essentially,or within themselves,it is far otherwise. 
 It is by virtue of this inherent power, which ani- 
 mated beings in general possess, that they are 
 enabled to overcome resistance and produce ac- 
 tion, to act without being acted upon, to move 
 without being moved ; by which a horse is enabled 
 
 to 
 
48 
 
 to draw a cart without the cart drawing the horse, 
 that the pen with which I write is enabled to 
 describe the letters I am writing, without the 
 paper having any power of resisting the impulse 
 which it receives from my pen ; the degree of ac- 
 tion which is produced does not so much arise 
 from magnitude as from internal energy, from ex- 
 tent of ponderable matter, as from activity and 
 skill. It is by means such as these that the 
 strong in mind, but weak in body, are often en- 
 abled to overcome the strong in body but the 
 weak in mind. It is in the skill which experi- 
 ence is often capable of producing, that the ex- 
 perienced swordsman is enabled to overcome 
 the awkward rustic ; by which the little David 
 was able to slay the great Goliah. 
 
 It is this power which, in fact, constitutes 
 really and truly, not only vis motus, but vis 
 inertiae also; a power to move as well as a power 
 to be quiet; a power to act and to resist, as well 
 as a power to yield and to follow impressions 
 communicated and received. 
 
 A vis 
 
49 
 
 A vis inertiae such as this is altogether sepa- 
 rate and different from the vis inertiae ascribed 
 by Sir Isaac Newton to matter in general, both 
 dead and common; the attribute to which he 
 refers is mere capacity, not power ; it is inertia 
 sine vi, resistance without activity, a forceless 
 force. 
 
 So far therefore from supposing that in the 
 motions which different bodies display, there 
 subsists between them a mutuality of action, 
 as Sir Isaac Newton asserts; that a stone 
 draws a horse as much as a horse draws a cart, 
 that a stone presses the finger as much as the 
 finger presses the stone, Quicquid premit vel 
 trahit alteram, tantundem ab eo premitur vel 
 trahitur. si quis lapidem digito premit, premitur 
 et hujus digitus a lapide. si equus lapidem funi 
 alligatum trahit, retrahetur etiam et equus (ut 
 ita dicam) aequaliter in lapidem, &c. &c. I 
 contend, on the contrary r that an assertion 
 such as this is erroneous in the extreme ; that it 
 is thereby ascribing equal powers to unequal 
 causes; confounding together inanimate with 
 
 e animated 
 
50 
 
 animated beings, as well as different kinds of 
 matter, whose nature and properties are altoge- 
 ther different ; death and life, passion and action ; 
 things that are moved with those that have the 
 power of moving ; things which derive power 
 through the medium of participation by exter- 
 nal force, with those which possess it essential- 
 ly and in actuality ; and finally reaction itself 
 with resistance. 
 
 What analogy, I would ask, is there between 
 the actions which flow from the powers (which 
 I have before briefly noticed), which animated 
 beings possess, and the passivity of the com- 
 mon matter on which they act; between the re- 
 action of a spring and the ponderable matter it 
 is able to support; between the expansibi- 
 lity of air and of fire, and the resisting body 
 which they are able to project to a considerable 
 distance. 
 
 It is apparent to me that in propounding this 
 pretended law Sir Isaac Newton never had 
 in his contemplation the power which par- 
 ticular bodies essentially possess to produce 
 
 action. 
 
51 
 
 action. The very term re-action, which he em- 
 ploys, and the arrangement in which the asser- 
 tion is conveyed, shew most clearly that it is 
 to the power of reacting' only, and of return- 
 ing from their forced to their natural state, that 
 elastic bodies possess, to which he refers. Had 
 it been otherwise he would have inverted the 
 order and the arrangement in his terms ; instead 
 of saying that re-action was equal to action, he 
 would have said that action was equal to re-ac- 
 tion ; in either case however he would have been 
 incorrect. 
 
 In order that re-action should be equal to. 
 action it is absolutely necessary to pre-suppose 
 not only that the medium through which bodies 
 act upon one another opposes no resistance what- 
 ever to them, but that space should exist without 
 matter to fill it, and a vacuum be the natural con- 
 dition of the greatest part of space. 
 
 The illustrious author of this conjecture, it 
 appears to me, not only made it without proof, 
 but contrary to every principle in nature. If such 
 
 e 2 an 
 
52 
 
 an incongruity as a vacuum for a moment could 
 be supposed, the bond of continuity by which 
 different parts of the material world are held and 
 connected together, would be broken and de- 
 stroyed : instead of the world in particular, or 
 the universe in general, being intrinsically one 
 whole, it would consist of as many distinct 
 worlds, or universes, as there are separated parts 
 or vacua, and every vacuum would, in fact, of 
 itself be one distinct world, or one distinct uni- 
 verse ; it is far more reasonable to conclude, that 
 it is as essential for space to have matter to fill 
 it, as for matter to have space in which it can be 
 contained. A condition of things such as that 
 which has been hypothetically supposed, I 
 maintain is falsified by every fact of which we 
 are in possession; it is owing to the plenitude 
 of matter which constitutes the cause why a fi- 
 nite power can never produce an infinite effect, 
 and why motion excited, perpetually diminishes, 
 and is ultimately lost; it is the case with the 
 motion of a pendulum ; if a pendulum be set in 
 motion by an impelling force, the medium of air 
 through which it is made to move perpetually 
 
 opposes 
 
5S 
 
 opposes motion, without giving it: if re-action 
 was equal to action, the pendulum would press 
 the air as much as the air presses the pendulum, 
 and motion perpetual might be produced. Motion 
 perpetual might be produced if we suppose that 
 which is impossible, that resistance should be 
 taken away, not only from the friction at the 
 point of suspension, but in the medium through 
 which the arch is described; if the re-acting 
 power of an elastic body is 20. the resistance of 
 the medium 5, thebody acted upon can only be 15. 
 The action produced in consequence of re-action, 
 can therefore neither be equal or greater, it must 
 therefore be less; if it were otherwise, instead 
 of the motion in a ball excited to move being 
 forced ultimately to cease, it would move for 
 ever, and an infinite variety of effects produced 
 which these false assumptions pre-suppose. 
 
 It is in the truth or error which exists in the 
 assumptions, or principles from whence different 
 sciences are derived, on which altogether de- 
 pend the truth or error of the conclusion which 
 b 3 is 
 
54 
 
 is made. Instead of these laws being rules of 
 action, which all matter must obey, effects 
 are constantly produced throughout the sys- 
 tem of nature in violation of them. I shall 
 therefore proceed to examine the various phe- 
 nomena which different species of matter dis- 
 play, and at the same time shew how much those 
 phenomena are at variance with the rules which 
 those laws are intended to describe. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON SENSATION AND THE OBJECTS OF IT. 
 
 IF I proceed to examine the relation which 
 exists between the impressions which are made 
 by external objects on the organs of sense, with 
 which animated beings are endowed, and the 
 functions which are in consequence excited, we 
 shall find that although it is very true, that in 
 order for sensations to be produced the agency 
 of external means on the sentient principle is 
 absolutely necessary; it is nevertheless most 
 certain that the sensation itself does not abide in 
 the external substance by which the impres- 
 sion 
 
56 
 
 sion is made, but in the living and animated be- 
 ing alone. 
 
 That this is the fact will appear if the effects 
 are examined, which are produced by the same 
 impressions on beings of different classes, as well 
 as on the same individual at different times. It 
 is very probable that impressions of the same 
 kind and of the same strength induced on ani- 
 mals of the same class, and of the same age ex- 
 cite in them sensations of the same kinds ; it is 
 however certain that very different sensations 
 are excited by the same impression on animals 
 of different species : that impressions which 
 excite the sensation of pleasure in some will be 
 found to give pain to others ; and the same 
 objects are known continually to vary in the sen- 
 sations which they produce : the hands and fin- 
 gers of the same individual under different cir- 
 cumstances, if plunged into water of the same 
 temperature shall at one time excite the sensa- 
 tion of heat at another time of cold, — the undula- 
 tion of the air, which at one time will be 
 scarcely audible to the ear. will at another ap- 
 pear 
 
37 
 
 pear like the voice of thunder, and give the 
 sensation of pain, (as in phrenitis). 
 
 In a state of health the same degree of illumi- 
 nation which excites the sensation of pleasure 
 in the eye, in opthalmia will occasion the colour 
 resembling a flame of fire. 
 
 A cup of cold water which generally quenches 
 thirst and gratifies the palate in a state of health, 
 if merely presented to a miserable being la- 
 bouring under hydrophobia, will excite the most 
 dreadful convulsions that can be conceived, as 
 well as the most unutterable thirst ; with foaming 
 at the mouth, and will accelerate death by the 
 most agonizing means. 
 
 If the sensations which beings possess were 
 inherent in the external substances, instead of 
 those sensations being multiplied and continued 
 without end, they would be limited and confin- 
 ed to the particular instant when the impression 
 was conveyed; and unless it was continually 
 repeated the sensation could never be recalled. 
 
 Facts 
 
58 
 
 Facts such as those which 1 have stated, and 
 of which there are no end, decidedly prove that 
 sensation does not abide in the external sub- 
 stance, but in the living and animated being 
 alone; they go to prove that the sensation of 
 sweetness does not abide in sugar, flavour in a 
 rose, cold in snow, or heat in fire, more than 
 pleasure or pain in a whip or in a sword : these 
 different bodies constitute the agents only by 
 which impressions on the nerves of sense are 
 made. 
 
 Although in common conversation we are in 
 the habit of connecting impression and sensation 
 together, as if subsisting in one and the same 
 subject, nothing however can be more incorrect, 
 instead of confounding the impression with the 
 sensation, the one ought to be separated from 
 the other. 
 
 The question to be determined is not whether 
 the sensations inhere in these bodies, or more 
 especially the affirmation that they do actually 
 inhere in them, that heat is in fire, cold in snow, 
 
 whiteness 
 
59 
 
 "whiteness in silver, blackness in jet, sweetness 
 in sugar, acidity in vinegar: we might with as 
 much propriety seek for the living amongst the 
 dead, and ascribe to death the efficient cause of 
 life. r Immobility of motion^ ignorance of design, 
 .'fatuity of thought, necessity of free agency. 
 
 The proposition to be solved to me appears 
 to be, not whether these sensations abide in these 
 bodies, but w hat are the bodies which possess the 
 poiver of conveying impressions upon the organs 
 of sense in general, by means of which sensation 
 is produced ? What are the bodies which im- 
 pressed upon the eye shall cause the sensation 
 of illumination in general, and of colour in par- 
 ticular; upon the ear the sensation of sound in 
 general, and of tone in particular; upon the 
 tongue taste in general and flavour in particular; 
 upon the skin feeling in general, the feeling of 
 pleasure or pain; of heat or of cold in particular. 
 
 A proposition such as this, with as much cer- 
 tainty may be solved by a child five years of 
 age as by a man who has lived to the years of 
 
 Mathu- 
 
60 
 
 Mathusalem; a child will at once affirm that strokes 
 or impressions made on him by a rod give him 
 pain, that a rose is fragrant, that gold is yellow, 
 silver white, jet black, sugar sweet, vinegar sour, 
 fire hot, snow cold. Not that these sensations 
 actually inhere in these bodes, but that these 
 bodies when impressed upon the different senses 
 produce or excite upon them different sensations, 
 to which different and appropriate names have 
 been given ; of illumination and variegation, of 
 flavour and of odour, of hot and of cold. 
 
 Whilst each individual organ can only obtain 
 a partial knowledge of any subject; the eye of 
 colour, the touch of resistance, the nose of fla- 
 vour, and the tongue of taste; the mind on the 
 contrary, which subsisting not like the organs 
 in parts, but as a whole total and universal, 
 receives the impressions wholly and totally, and 
 contemplates altogether and at once the vari- 
 ous attributes of the body, a perception of which 
 the organs of sense had separately obtained, 
 whilst the organs of sense therefore distinguish 
 the particular attributes of a body, the mind, on 
 
 the 
 
61 
 
 the contrary receives and conceives these per- 
 ceptions universally; things partible it views 
 impartibly, things divisible indivisibly, things 
 temporal eternally.* 
 
 Hoping that I have succeeded in showing 
 that sensation does not abide in the external sub- 
 stance, but in the sensitive principle alone, it 
 will be easy to understand that that which is 
 void of thought and of reason cannot be the cause 
 of thought and of reason, that although. sensa- 
 tion more than ratiocination cannot exist with- 
 out an instrument or organ ; the organ is not the 
 cause either of sensation or ratiocination ; al- 
 though right thinking and feeling may not take 
 place without a right disposition of body, 
 a right disposition of body is not as a conse- 
 
 • Whilst the different attributes which the organ of sense 
 perceive constitute the true sources, from whence definition 
 ought to be derived; nomenclature, on the contrary is made 
 from the congregation into one point of all the attributes to- 
 gether. The definition of silver or of gold is not confined to its 
 colour only, but to its colour and density; its diagnosis from 
 other bodies consist in its malleability and relative weight &c. 
 
 quence 
 
62 
 
 quence the efficient cause of right thinking: the 
 body, it has been well observed by a celebrated 
 divine, may hinder thought but cannot effect it ; 
 the faculties of the soul like the sun may be ob- 
 scured and eclipsed by an interposing body, but 
 as soon as the obstruction is removed the light 
 will shine out again in full lustre. 
 
 It has been owing to the wretched system of 
 philosophy which makes the external substance 
 by which the impression is made to be very thing, 
 and the sentient principle by which the impres- 
 sion is received to be nothing, on which the whole 
 system of materialism is founded ; that makes 
 an effect instead of a cause of life; of that 
 principle which is the cause of organization 
 and of motion throughout the whole range of 
 animated existence, from the most simple vege- 
 table to the most complicated animal, as well 
 as that higher and more excellent principle by 
 which man is more particularly characterized, 
 I mean of mind or soul. 
 
 I shall 
 
63 
 
 I shall put the authority of scripture on this 
 point out of the question, because I know it is 
 no authority with those who deny its immaterial 
 nature; it is however certain that the philoso- 
 phers of ancient times entertained very different 
 ideas upon the subject from those of modern 
 days. According to Mr. Locke the soul is a 
 mere tabula rasa, a sheet of white paper, an emp- 
 ty recipient, a mechanical blank; according to 
 Plato the soul is the reservoir of ideas and of 
 forms, an ever written tablet, a vital and intel- 
 lectual energy ; according to Mr. Locke's system 
 ideas are formed from external and sensible 
 particulars by mechanical means; by Plato 
 ideas are eternal and immaterial beings, the pat- 
 terns and originals of all sensible forms, the 
 fountain of all evidence and of truth: by the 
 generality of modern philosophers the soul is 
 supposed to be the effect of organs which in 
 their nature are material and perishable ; that 
 the soul in fact is what Brown in his absurd and 
 wicked system, conceived life actually to be a 
 « mere 
 
64 
 
 mere effect, of which organization was the cause, 
 by the Gtksr that the soul is incorporeal and im- 
 material, eternal and divine. 
 
 Whosoever compares both systems together 
 
 will have cause to deplore the loss which philo- 
 sophy has sustained in consequence of the inno- 
 vation on this subject which has taken place, 
 and be forced to see the attributes of mind render- 
 ed subservient and dependent on the properties 
 of matter. 
 
 It is in vain for the modern sages to argue in 
 favour of the immortality of the soul, from the 
 eternity and indestructability of matter, it ought 
 by them to be proved what the perishable na- 
 ture of all generated beings, from the creation 
 of the world to the present time, absolutely deny; 
 they ought to shew that the organization as a 
 cause, of which soul is supposed to be the ef- 
 fect, instead of flowing and changing, and 
 constantly verging to inevitable decay, is per- 
 menant during life and everlastingly the same 
 
 and 
 
65 
 
 and that the attributes of the soul could survive 
 the cause by which it was itself produced. 
 
 Yielding however to the testimony of our 
 senses, beholding as we do, not only during life, 
 but more especially at the period of dissolution 
 and of death, the destruction total and complete 
 which the organization undergoes, the con- 
 clusion is direct, that the instant the organiza- 
 tion of the body is decomposed or destroyed, 
 like the power of any inanimate machine, the anni- 
 hilation of the soul must everlastingly take place ; 
 the annihilation of the soul must then take place, 
 because the power of a subject can never survive 
 the arrangements out of which those powers 
 were produced : the materialist, therefore, if he 
 be true to his principles, can never extend his 
 hopes of existence beyond the grave. Instead 
 of looking forward after the death of the body 
 to a resurrection of life eternal, he can only ex- 
 pect an eternal annihilation; instead of exclaim- 
 ing in the language of St. Paul, " Oh Death! 
 where is thy sting? oh Grave! where is thy vic- 
 tory?" the materialist must feel the bitterness in 
 
 f the 
 
66 
 
 the sting of death, and admit the victory of the 
 grave, without the consoling hope of a resurec- 
 tion out of it. 
 
 It was to this impious class of pretenders to 
 philosophy which in times of old composed the 
 sect of the sadducees, the very same sect which 
 under different appellations, exists in different 
 parts of Europe ; they are the Illuminati of Ger- 
 many; the Scavans and the philosophers of 
 France ; the materialists of England. 
 
 They constitute, in their own estimation, the 
 wise men of the west, the standards of human 
 opinion, in whom the perfectibility of human 
 wisdom abides, to whose judgement all ought 
 to appeal and bow. Instead of assimilating 
 their false philosophy to the divine truths of 
 revelation, they rather wish to make revelation 
 bend to their false philosophy, or else altoge- 
 ther discard as extravagant and absurd, the 
 sublime truths which are proclaimed in the 
 oracles of God. 
 
 {shall 
 
67 
 
 I shall not at present expatiate on the im- 
 mediate influence which a scheme such as this, 
 of arrogance and of misery, must have upon the 
 mind or soul of its votaries. I ought however 
 to beg pardon for the expression, — on such a 
 system, soul, or mind, cannot be supposed to 
 have any actual subsistence; it can only be 
 compared to the index which points the time 
 on the dial of a clock, which for ever stops the 
 instant the spring becomes broken, or the 
 weight arrested, by the force of which the in- 
 dex was moved. 
 
 It is very apparent also, that whilst the scheme 
 of materialism terminates with mortality, that it 
 becomes the immediate parent of which the athe- 
 istical system is the legitimate offspring. By ascrib- 
 ing to the operation of matter the whole pheno- 
 mena of nature, it also gets rid of the necessity 
 which exists to every reflecting and well regulat- 
 ed mind of any principle which is intelligent and 
 divine: for nothing can be divine which is not 
 intelligent, and nothing can be intelligent which 
 has not a meaning, nor any being have a mean- 
 
 f 2 ing 
 
 / 
 
68 
 
 ing which has not a motive or a final cause (as 
 it has formerly been called) to direct its opera- 
 tions; men such as these may appear wise 
 amongst fools, but they will appear to be fools 
 amongst the wise. 
 
 It in fact discards and rejects the absolute 
 necessity which has been apparent (with few 
 exceptions), to all men, in all ages, of one uni- 
 versal and supreme cause, primary and effici- 
 ent of all secondary or instrumental causes, of 
 one all creative and preserving spirit, the foun- 
 tain of all wisdom, the source of all life and action, 
 who made the world by his command and who 
 governs it by his providence ; who is infinitely 
 powerful, wise, and good, whose centre is every 
 where, whose circumference is no where; by 
 whose omnipresence all things are permiated, by 
 whose omniscience all things are known ; not 
 only the visible actions performed by the body, 
 but inward thoughts and affections of the soul ; 
 who is above all, through all, and in all, as 
 St. Paul describes it. 
 
 Dr. 
 
69 
 
 Dr. Adam Clark, whose profound learning 
 is universally acknowledged ; in his excellent 
 commentary on the bible, which he is now pub- 
 lishing ; in his first note says, " many attempts 
 have been made to define the word God ; as to 
 the word itself, it is pure Anglo Saxon, and 
 amongst our ancestors signified not only the 
 divine being, more commonly designated by the 
 word, but also good; as in their apprehension it 
 appears that god and good were correlatives ; 
 and when they thought or spoke of him they 
 were ever led from the word itself to consider 
 him as the good being, a fountain of infinite be- 
 nevolence and beneficence, towards his crea- 
 tures." 
 
 A general definition of this great first cause, as 
 far as human words dare attempt one, may be thus 
 given. The eternal, independent, and self-existent 
 Being: the Being whose purposes and actions 
 spring from himself, without foreign motive or 
 influence ; he who is absolute in dominion, the 
 most pure, most simple, and most spiritual of 
 all essences, infinitely benevolent, beneficent, 
 
 f 3 true 
 
70 
 
 true and holy; the cause of all being, the up- 
 holder of all things, infinitely happy because in- 
 finitely good, and eternally self-sufficient, need- 
 ing nothing that he has made. Illimitable in 
 his immensity, inconceivable in his mode of ex- 
 istence, and indescribable in his essence, known 
 only fully to himself, because an infinite mind can 
 only be comprehended by itself. In a word, a 
 being, who from his infinite wisdom cannot err 
 or be deceived, and who from his infinite good- 
 ness can do nothing but what is eternally just, 
 right and kind.* 
 
 * If the act of parliament which obliges a printer to put his 
 name at the end of every book which he prints, had enacted also 
 that every author who publishes a book should be obliged to 
 insert at the beginning of it the most approved definition of the 
 great first cause, the Almighty God ; it would perhaps be one of 
 the best correctives that can be devised against that mass of 
 pollution, and of filth, of profanation and defamation which 
 we constantly behold issuing from the«press ; the best book 
 would not be rriade the worse for it, and the worse book wouM 
 unquestionably be all the better. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON THE POWER OF LIFE AND ITS RELATION TO 
 MATTER. 
 
 THE subject has imperceptibly led me be- 
 yond the limits I had prescribed; the error, if er- 
 ror it can be called, would not have existed had 
 men of science, instead of investigating effects 
 only, pursued their enquiries to the nature of the 
 causes by which they were produced. It ap- 
 pears to me] that nothing but a perverted way 
 of thinking could have led to the belief that 
 matter, in whatever form it exists, has the power 
 to convert itself into different organs, in fabric 
 most delicate, in action most extensive, in form 
 most diversified ; that by the congregation of these 
 
 f 4 
 
 organ g 
 
72 
 
 organs one whole system is constituted ; that the 
 result of this organization is life, and out of this 
 organized life action and motion are produced, 
 so that matter is the efficient cause, and life only 
 the effect. 
 
 It is evident indeed that these gentlemen move 
 in an inverted order, and end where they ought 
 to begin ; they begin by making power to arise 
 out of weakness, symmetry and order from that 
 which is naturally formless, and finally design 
 and intelligence the attributes of things void of 
 all consciousness and destitute of all sensation. 
 
 Instead of making organization the effect of 
 life, they make life to be the effect of organiza- 
 tion; instead of making the phenomena of or- 
 ganization the final, they make it the primary 
 and efficient cause, in which life is supposed 
 truly and virtually to consist — the source of life, 
 indeed, at its termination. 
 
 Had they however investigated the subject 
 as metaphysicians and physiologists ought to 
 
 have 
 
73 
 
 have done, not as chemists and materialists, had 
 they not begun the enquiry at the wrong end, 
 and stopped in the middle, they would have 
 seen that although action was the effect of life, 
 that life subsisted prior to action, that the first 
 actions of life were displayed in developing it- 
 self, by acting on the matter by which it was sur- 
 rounded, and that the result of this power which 
 the organs possessed was manifested by the 
 production of organic action ; the power there- 
 fore was resident within, the means by which this 
 power was evolved or called forth into energy 
 came from without, the result of which was the 
 production of organization and action. 
 
 The action produced is not the cause of life, as 
 has been falsely and erroneously supposed, but 
 merely the effect of it; life may exist without 
 organic action, but organic action cannot exist 
 without life : life may be considered to consti- 
 tute the principle and the cause, of which or- 
 ganization is the secondary and instrumental 
 cause, and organic action itself is the final 
 cause. The various organized systems therefore 
 which we behold, are effects only of eft t 
 
 d 
 
74 
 
 and producing causes, they constitute the ob- 
 vious and manifest images of which these pri- 
 mary principles and causes are the prototypes. 
 It is very true that these prototypes or principles 
 can only be known through the medium of their 
 effects; by the phenomena of life, of vitality,- 
 through sensation — of sensibility^ through consci- 
 ousness — of intellect^ through the works of crea- 
 tion, — that we can conceive a knowledge of the 
 Creator, or as St. Paul describes it "by which 
 the invisible things of God from the creation of 
 the world are clearly seen, being understood by 
 the things that are made ; even his eternal power 
 and Godhead." 
 
 The relation of power which those principles 
 or causes bear to the subject or matter on which 
 they operate, is illustrated by every phenome- 
 non which is produced by animated beings in 
 general: it is, for example, by the power of the 
 artist over the subject of his art, that he is en- 
 abled to convert and to model it according to 
 his will; that the statuary has the power to 
 chissel the marble, into a statue; the painter 
 
 to 
 
76 
 
 to draw figures upon the canvas ; the carpenter 
 to cut the timber and shape it in the form of a 
 table, &c. &c. 
 
 It is the same relation by which the di- 
 gestive, or assimilating organs which all ani- 
 mated beings possess, have over the dif- 
 ferent articles of food which they several- 
 ly receive for their nourishment and sup- 
 port Instead of preserving the identity of 
 its nature, or the qualities which it originally 
 possessed, instead of obeying the order of che- 
 mical affinities, or becoming amenable to the 
 operation of chemical laws, instead of the parts 
 uniting and forming compounds, which under 
 the same circumstances uniformly and invari- 
 ably produce the same result: the change which 
 the food is made to undergo by the digestive 
 organs, is not only not the same as we behold 
 produced from chemical action, but totally and 
 absolutely different ; the commutation which it 
 has sustained is total and complete, not only with 
 respect to quantity but to quality also, not only 
 with respect to external configuration in gene* 
 ral, but to internal property in particular. 
 
 It 
 
76 
 
 It is this unifying power, if I may be allow^k 
 the expression, which the assimilating organs 
 possess over different articles of food, which are 
 discordant and heterogeneous, of reducing differ- 
 ent kinds of food to one and the same species, 
 by which the act of digestion differs in a very 
 essential manner from the act of aggregation 
 simply, and more especially from chemical union 
 and combination. When two masses or portions 
 of matter of the same kind are added toge- 
 ther, an increase of bulk only takes place ; and 
 when different kinds of matter are brought in 
 contact together, and an union between them is 
 accomplished, the compound which has been 
 formed always bears the same relation to the 
 quality of the parts out of which it was pro- 
 duced, whether the union has been effected be- 
 tween gas and vapour, a fluid or a solid, an 
 acid or an alkali, a metallic ore or any other 
 body. 
 
 With the act of digestion it is far otherwise ; 
 by the energy of the digestive organs gasses are 
 
 less 
 
77 
 
 4&9S- bereaved of their expansibility, acids of their 
 acidity, alkalies of their acrimony, all of the 
 order of their affinities, and rendered bland and 
 mild; by them solids are liquified, liquids gela- 
 tenized and made solid, things simple become 
 compounded, such as are inanimate are animat- 
 ed, animated things are killed and revivified, the 
 most sapid bodies are rendered insipid, the most 
 putrid matter is deprived of its putridity, and 
 made antiseptic and fresh, the most fresh and 
 antiseptic is rendered susceptible of undergo- 
 ing the processes of putrefaction and fermenta- 
 tion. Words indeed are wanting, language itself 
 is insufficient to describe the difference which 
 exists between the laws by which animated beings 
 are governed and those to which matter, either 
 dead or common, is amenable. Whilst the phe- 
 nomena which common matter displays are re- 
 gular and definite, and uniformly and invariably 
 the same ; we behold, on the contrary, the same 
 kind of matter applied to different living sys- 
 tems, as well as to the same systems at differ- 
 ent times changed into a, nature totally differ- 
 ent: 
 
78 
 
 ent: we behold in the same field, and in the 
 same soil, a multitude of different vegetables 
 fed and nourished by water and by air in qua- 
 lity precisely the same, and yet assuming an 
 organization and form totally different. It is 
 well observed by Mr. Mason Good (whose learn- 
 ing and research 1 am happy to acknowledge), 
 that the most burning sands of hot climates, even 
 the karo fields of the Cape of Good Hope, so 
 sere and adust that no water can be extracted 
 from them, are the media in which the most suc- 
 culent vegetables of which we have any know- 
 ledge flourish and evolve; so deleterious indeed 
 is a wet season to their growth, that they are 
 destroyed by it ; there are also various tribes of 
 vegetables that are destitute of radicles, and 
 which can only be supported and nourished by 
 the air and by the moisture which the atmos- 
 phere contains ; a large portion of the class of 
 fuci has no root whatever, and it is stated that 
 the aerial epidendron, the epidendrum flos aeris, 
 denominated aerial from its extraordinary pro- 
 perties, and which is a native of Java in the east 
 Indies, on account of the elegance of its leaves, 
 
 the 
 
the beauty of its flower, and the exquisite odour 
 which it diffuses, is plucked up by the inhabi- 
 tants and suspended by a silken cord from the 
 ceiling of their apartments, from whence it con- 
 tinues from year to year to put forth new leaves 
 to display new blossoms, and exhale new fra- 
 grance, although fed out of the simple bodies 
 I have before stated.* 
 
 This assimilating and convertible power over 
 different kinds of food in the digestive organs 
 is equally proved by animals, whether herbiver- 
 ous, carnivorous, or omnivorous. Meat cut out of 
 the same joint, bread from the same loaf, water 
 drawn from the same fountain, and portions of 
 air separated from the same volume, given to a 
 man or a monkey, to a dog or a cat, will lose 
 every vestige of its former qualities, and be con- 
 verted to the particular nature of the system to 
 which it had been applied. 
 
 This power of decomposing the most minute 
 
 * Vide Mr. Good's Oration before the London Physical So- 
 ciety. 
 
 particles 
 
80 
 
 particles of matter, which the assimilating organs 
 possess, and of converting it to the nature of the 
 system to which it has been applied, although 
 obvious to the most simple observation of the 
 most common observer, and which must be 
 obvious to himself as well as to every one else, 
 has been further ascertained by experiments. 
 Mr. Abernethy procured a rabbit six weeks old 
 and fed him with a quantity of young cabbage 
 and lettuce which had grown on flannel, sprink- 
 led with distill ed-water ; the animal it was found 
 preserved his health as perfectly as if he had 
 been placed in a warren. 
 
 Dr. Fordyce enclosed in glasses filled with 
 common water several gold and silver fish ; at 
 first he changed the water every twenty four 
 hours, and afterwards every three days ; on this 
 food alone the fish continued to live and to 
 grow for fifteen months. As Dr. Fordyce sus- 
 spected that it was possible animalcules might 
 have previously existed in this water, he ex- 
 changed the well for distilled water, and after 
 adding air to it, and in order to prevent the pos- 
 sibility 
 
81 
 
 sibility of insects getting access within the ves- 
 sel he carefully closed it up : the fish however 
 grew and performed all their natural functions 
 as perfectly as if they had been swimming in a 
 reservoir. 
 
 The fact is equally proved by those animals 
 who live principally upon carrion, upon rotten 
 cheese, and the exuviae both of animals and of 
 vegetables also; although corruption is not the 
 cause of animation, animation often flourishes 
 with the greatest vigour on the materials which 
 corruption has produced. 
 
 We shall find it to be generally the case if 
 we were to take a cursory review of the differ- 
 ent kinds of food which different classes of men 
 take for their nourishment; however different 
 the materials may be on which they feed, the 
 blood and the flesh of which they are composed 
 possesses the same properties and yields by 
 chemical analysis the same product; whether of 
 a Bramin who lives on vegetables alone, or of a 
 tartar who is carnivorous ; and I would ap- 
 
 g peal 
 
82 
 
 peal to the testimony of any determined venison 
 eater, whether he has not frequently enjoyed 
 the green fat of a stinking haunch, without re- 
 taining in his own person any of its offensive 
 flavour. 
 
 This converting power of the assimilating 
 organ, on stinking matter, was proved by Mr. 
 Hunter, and Spalanzani; they thrust pieces of 
 the most putrid flesh, tied by a string, into the 
 stomach of different dogs, and after leaving it 
 for some time, by means of the string they witfc- 
 drew the meat from the stomach, and on exa- 
 mining it they found that instead of being pur 
 trid and offensive as at first, that it had become 
 fresh and sweet. 
 
 That all the effects which I have above enu- 
 merated are accomplished by the activity and 
 power of the gastric juice, which is secreted from 
 the surface of the stomach, is admitted by phy- 
 siologists in general ; a great diversity of opi- 
 nion however exists in respect to the mode 
 of its operation ; by a few, very few indeed, it is, 
 
 con- 
 
83 
 
 concluded that it is performed by a living* power 
 resident in this fluid, — by the generality of others 
 that it is the consequence of a chemical not a 
 living power. If it be by a chemical power, we 
 ought by analogy to expect that its chemical 
 properties by analysis would be detected; that 
 it ought to possess some sensible properties, that 
 it is either acid or alkalescent ; so far however 
 from possessing sensible or chemical properties 
 adequate to account for the extraordinary 
 power which it possesses, it appears upon a 
 close examination to be a mere mucous fluid, 
 inodourous and insipid, neither acid nor alcales- 
 cent, neither turning vegetable blues to a green 
 or to a red colour; and by chemical analysis it 
 f yields neither saline or mineral substances; it 
 is therefore, I contend impossible to refer its 
 action to any chemical power which it is pre- 
 tended to possess, but that it is far more rea- 
 sonable to conclude that its activity is altoge- 
 ther derived from the energy of the living power 
 which is superadded to it, whose edge is shar- 
 per than that of the keenest knife, whose solvent 
 
 g 2 pro- 
 
84 
 
 property is more active than that of the most 
 eroding caustic. 
 
 Such indeed is the activity of this living juice 
 that although it remains during life in harmony 
 with the organ by which it has been produced, its 
 own powernotwithstanding extends and continues 
 after the death of the organ itself has taken place ; 
 hence it is that the stomach has thefr been found 
 corroded and destroyed, more especially in the py- 
 loric extremity of it, and after making its way on 
 surrounding parts, these have been found torn 
 asunder and finally dissolved, 
 
 This solvent power was abundantly proved by 
 Reamur, by Dr. Stevens, and others ; they intro- 
 duced different kinds of food in balls,some of which 
 were perforated, and others which were impervi- 
 ous : the food placed in the former, on which the 
 gastric juice could have access Wjas very easily di- 
 gested, whilst the food contained in the latter re- 
 mained unaltered* 
 
 • I cannot at this place go further into the subject, but must 
 refer the reader to my system of physiology in which all the 
 facts are properly detailed, 
 
 Xv 
 
85 
 
 It is by the energy of this same living power resi- 
 dent in the seed of plants and in the fsecundated ova 
 of animals, that the acom becomes evolved into an, 
 oak,the infant foliage expanded into leaves,and the 
 whole process of nutrition and of growth carried, 
 on : it is this power which constitutes the architect 
 and the fabricator, by which the whole machine is 
 erected ; it is the base on which the whole stands, 
 it forms the bond of its elementary parts, the 
 cement that unites them into one whole : it is 
 the cause primary and efficient, from whence 
 the individuality of every living systemarises 
 in which the form and the sex it assumes essen- 
 tially reside ; by which the human species dif- 
 fers from the brute, the brute from the veget- 
 able, the vegetable itself from matter inanimate 
 and common ; this power it is which I call life. 
 The matter which this power has assimilated 
 and organized it is which I call living matter; it 
 is this principle which has been named by Aris- 
 totle sdos, by Harris, form — by Stahl vis medi- 
 catrix naturae — by Haller, vis vitae — by Blumen- 
 bach, nisus formativus— by J. Brown, excitabi- 
 lity (if the term has in it any meaning), and by Hun- 
 ter, principle of life; which term appears to me 
 
 g 3 so 
 
86 
 
 so appropriate and distinct that I shall conse- 
 quently continue to retain, and which may be 
 defined " the poiver by whose energy different 
 species of matter are assimilated to one kind, 
 a living system organized and formed, and 
 the various parts ofivhich it is composed are pro- 
 tected and preserved from decomposition and 
 decay." 
 
 In its essence this living principle must be de- 
 finite, because the body which it has organized 
 and formed is limited in the extent of its growth, 
 and prevented from acquiring indefinite magni- 
 tude, although the materials for its perpetual 
 en crease continue to be applied. 
 
 It must possess a formative power, because 
 every living system which exists, from the most 
 simple and insignificant, to the most gigantic and 
 complicated, is always marked by an arrange- 
 ment of its parts, definite and particular. 
 
 In its energy it must be essentially active, 
 since it imparts activity to the inertness, and 
 
 figure 
 
87 
 
 figure to the formless condition of the materials 
 of which it is composed ; in that energy it must 
 be temporal, because every living system 
 from the beginning of its creation to its termina- 
 tion is transient and perishable, and in a con- 
 stant and unceasing state of progression, per- 
 fection and decay. 
 
 c 4 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON THE EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE OF LIFE, 
 
 THE principle of life, as a cause, may be con- 
 templated in the abstract, as separate and dis- 
 tinct from the action which it produces ; it bears 
 the same relation to action as the painter does 
 to the painting; although it is very true that the 
 painting could not have existed without the 
 painter, the effect without the cause, more than 
 vital action without vitality; the painter never- 
 theless existed before the picture which he de- 
 scribed upon the canvass, as well as vitality it- 
 self before vital action; that is to say, that al- 
 though organic action cannot exist without life, 
 
 life 
 
90 
 
 life may exist withdut organic action ; the existence 
 of vitality without organic action is proved by 
 the seeds of plants, by the ova of animals, by 
 the foetus in utero, as well as by torpid animals 
 in a torpid state: it is proved by the multitude 
 of cases which we constantly behold, in the 
 foetal state, in which many of the organs which 
 are absolutely necessary to carry on the func- 
 tions of the adult system are altogether wanting. 
 I have seen a fetus without a head, others with 
 a head but without brains, some without lungs, 
 others without a heart or lungs ; many have 
 been found destitute of abdominal viscera, and 
 with various other mal conformations of the sys- 
 tem. 
 
 Although these organs were either defective 
 or wanting, the other parts of the system were 
 found perfectly developed, and to have attained 
 their symmetry and form. 
 
 This assertion will more evidently appear if 
 I were to examine the state of the living prin- 
 ciple in the seeds of plants and ova of animals; 
 
 there 
 
91 
 
 there are not in them any traces whatever to be 
 found of the future animal or vegetable, there 
 is no foetus in miniature, either of the one or of the 
 other ; and in animals, more especially of those 
 belonging to the higher classes, gestation has 
 continued for a considerable period before any 
 bond of continuity between the different parts 
 can possibly be detected ; neither is the evolu- 
 tion equal in its progress throughout the whole; 
 there are many parts whose evolution has scarce- 
 ly commenced, whilst the developement of others 
 has been completed. 
 
 If foetal evolution depended on organic action 
 in general, a necessity would exist for the pre- 
 sence of the various substances on which the 
 different organs are destined to act; the admis- 
 sion of air would be necessary to call forth the 
 action of the lungs; the introduction of food into 
 the mouth would be necessary to call forth the 
 digestive powers of the stomach. 
 
 If the foetus were so situated its subsistence 
 
 would in a great measure depend upon choice, 
 
 ' not 
 
92 
 
 not necessity; upon choice without the power of 
 choosing, upon organic action before organiza- 
 tion had existed, of indigency and want whilst 
 destitute of the means by which its necessities 
 could be supplied, and the fetal system would re- 
 semble the adult, without the power of arriving to 
 that state ; it is far otherwise ; it appears to me 
 that the fetal constitutes a medium condition, 
 forming on the one hand a connected part of the 
 maternal consitution, although separated from it 
 by its own individual existence : that there sub- 
 sists an individual existence in both, separate 
 and distinct from each, is evident from many 
 facts which we see, in which the life of the fetus 
 terminates whilst that of the mother continues, 
 and on the contrary in which the fetus survives 
 the death of the mother. The true end which 
 nature has in view during the fetal state is evi- 
 dently to organize those parts which constitute 
 the means by which the animal is able to pro- 
 vide for its necessary wants when the adult 
 state begins : hence it is that the organs which 
 are designed to accomplish these ends are 
 especially distinguished in the fetal state, by the 
 
 rapidity 
 
93 
 
 rapidity of their growth and the magnitude which 
 they have attained when the adult state has be- 
 gun. I may enumerate, as the first in order 
 the head with the organs of sense and the nerves 
 which are connected with them; secondly, the 
 mouth, trachea, and lungs ; thirdly, the heart 
 and arterial system, the oesophagus and sto- 
 mach, with its auxiliary organs, namely, the 
 spleen, the pancreatic, and hepatic systems ; the 
 omentum, the intestinal canal, and lacteal vessels, 
 &c. &c. Under the second head might be men- 
 tioned the bones and many of the voluntary 
 muscles attached to them, the generating organs 
 and the venous and lymphatic absorbent systems, 
 the teeth, the hair, the nails, &c. During the 
 foetal state the brain is in a state of growth with- 
 out consciousriess,"c?sense without sensation, the 
 muscles without voluntary motion, the lungs 
 without respiration, the stomach without digest 
 tion, the intestinal canal without peristaltic 
 motion, and the lacteal vessels without ab-r 
 sorption. 
 
 Although 
 
94 
 
 Although these different organs are in a pas- 
 sive state, no doubt can exist but that they pos- 
 sess a power to act and that they only require 
 proper objects adapted to the nature of each, in 
 order that that power may be excited and dis- 
 played in the production of action. It is this 
 power of acting, of the eye to see, of the ear to 
 bear, of the tongue to taste, of the stomach to 
 digest, which I denominate predisposition. 
 
 Predisposition therefore appears to be a state 
 of dormant power, or a power in capacity; it 
 resembles the elasticity of a spring, whilst it is 
 coiled up ; like the figures engraved in a seal, be- 
 fore they are participated by the wax; it is like 
 the gun powder before it detonates and ex- 
 plodes ; the gun powder p6ssesses the capacity 
 to explode, the seal to impress the figure, and the 
 spring to react. These attributes, however, which 
 these different bodies severally possess, would 
 never be displayed unless they were placed un- 
 der circumstances fitted for the nature of each ; 
 a resisting medium for the spring, a soft body 
 
 like 
 
95 
 
 like wax for the seal, and a particular state of 
 the air for the gun powder : it is the same thing 
 with respect to the living principle and the 
 different organs which it has produced, it not 
 only demands a certain state and temperature 
 of the medium in which it is placed, but parti- 
 cular kinds of food as well as particular condi- 
 tion of it, before that dormant power can become 
 power active, and the phenomena produced of 
 organic action. It is in the developement of this 
 power from capacity to energy, from predisposi- 
 tion to action, by which means are employed 
 with a view to ends, and the final cause attain- 
 ed for which animated beings were intended.* 
 
 If I were to prosecute this enquiry it would be 
 necessary for me not only to detail the structure 
 
 * Causes may be divided into three kinds, first, primary or 
 efficient causes, as the great first cause and the principles of intel- 
 lect and of life. Secondly, into instrumental or secondary 
 causes, which consist in the various organs of the body, as the 
 instruments which it employs in order to assist, as a telescope to 
 the eye, a hammer to the hand, &c. &c. Thirdly, The final 
 cause which consists in the accomplishment of the object for 
 which the instrumental cause was employed ; the final cause 
 may therefore be said to arise from the motive by which the action 
 js produced, 
 
 of 
 
9*5 
 
 of those organs in different classes of beings 
 both animal and vegetable, but the mode in 
 which they severally subsist. 
 
 It is with a view to make the end subservient 
 to the means, of adapting the medium to the 
 nature of the being which it is to contain, to pro- 
 duce in fact harmony and adaptation between 
 both ; that we bekold the providence of God has 
 destined particular soils and particular climates 
 for particular classes of beings in which those 
 ends may be attained. 
 
 When we behold the regularity with which the 
 actions of vegetables are performed, as well as 
 the simplicity in the construction of their frame, 
 we are naturally led to conclude that those ac- 
 tions, constant and definite as they seem to 
 be, must flow from the operation of causes which 
 exist uniformly and invariably the same, with>- 
 out any opposing or controuling power, resid- 
 ing within the system itself, by the energy of 
 which those actions can either be suppressed 
 or prevented ; there is not only a progressive 
 
 development 
 
97 
 
 developement of particular organs, from the 
 first period of germination to the perfection of 
 fructification ; but an appointed season for the 
 evolution of the living principle itself, which the 
 seed contains ; the end or final cause of which 
 seems evidently to be the propagation of the 
 species, as means of affording nourishment and 
 support to beings of a higher class. 
 
 The means by which the end is obtain- 
 ed is not confined to one, but often extends 
 to several modes, and the offspring produced is 
 perfect in all its parts, whether it has been evolv- 
 ed from a bulb or from a bud, from a single leaf 
 or from the seed itself. 
 
 It does not however appear, from any know- 
 ledge which we possess, that vegetables have 
 any organs either of sense or of consciousness, 
 with which animals in general are endowed. 
 
 When we behold the blossom of the sun flower 
 following the beams of the sun from east to west 
 the dionaea muscipula seizing flies by the con- 
 
 H trac 
 
98 
 
 traction of its leaves and making them prisoners ; 
 the sensitive plant becoming tremulous and irrita- 
 ble throughout the whole of its frame when 
 impressions are made on any of its parts ; when 
 various other plants have their corolla opened 
 and expanded, contracted and closed at parti- 
 cular periods of the day and night, as well as 
 under particular states of temperature in the at- 
 mosphere : I may, perhaps, be permitted to as- 
 sert that these effects are not the offspring of 
 the living principle alone, but on the contrary 
 that they must proceed from some small degree 
 of sensitive power which they may possibly 
 possess (and which consequently resides in a 
 nerve or something analogous to it, as the organ 
 alone which is appropriated to fulfil that office) 
 as much as the faculty which we behold in the 
 oyster, of opening its shell at the afflux of the 
 tide. 
 
 This nervous power however, if it be one, 
 does not extend throughout the whole of the veget- 
 able system, it is principally confined to the efflor- 
 escence, at the particular time in which it be- 
 comes 
 
99 
 
 cotnes unfolded, and when it is about to fulfil 
 the final cause of its existence, in the production 
 of fructification* 
 
 Admitting the possibility that something like 
 a nervous arrangement may exist in a few species 
 of vegetables, in those which approximate the 
 closest to the first order of the animal tribe; it 
 does not however appear that the anatomist has 
 detected its existence, or the physiologist ex- 
 plored its power, in that large and interme- 
 diate class of beings which connect the higher 
 orders of vegetables with the lowest of the ani- 
 mal kingdom. The hydra, or semi-transparent 
 polypus, when examined in the best light 
 through the strongest magnifying microscope 
 seems to be nothing else than a granular sub- 
 stance, something like boiled sago, connected to- 
 gether into a distinct and organized form by 
 the medium of a gelatinous substance* 
 
 In the zoophytes and the lowest order of 
 
 vermes, the whole of their fabric is nearly of the 
 
 same simple construction ; the power of digest- 
 
 h 2 ing 
 
100 
 
 ing or assimilating the matter of the medium in 
 which they are placed, extends over the surface 
 of their system, similar to vegetables ; insomuch 
 that when the whole is cut into parts each por- 
 tion possesses within itself the power of gener- 
 ation and nutrition. 
 
 As we ascend in the scale of animals we are 
 able to distinguish between different classes of 
 each a considerable degree of difference in the 
 organization of which they are composed; their 
 digestive organs instead of being dispersed over 
 the whole external surface of their frame, have a 
 particular organ to which this office is especial- 
 ly allotted ; whilst vegetables in general act up- 
 on the fluid matter by which they are surround- 
 ed and convert it into nourishment; animals in 
 general, on the contrary, select it by means of 
 the organs of sense with which they are sup- 
 plied. Such indeed is the absolute magnitude 
 of the organs of sense in these beings that they 
 can be easily detected— the caterpillar has six 
 eyes on each side, and in the snail its eyes are 
 distinctly visible at the extremity of each of its 
 
 horns, 
 
101 
 
 horns, exclusive of which a number of fibrils 
 arise from its mouth, which no doubt impart 
 to the sense of taste an exquisite degree of sen- 
 sibility. 
 
 In the bee the eyes are not only of a very large 
 size, but owing to the peculiarity in their con- 
 struction, the area of their surface becomes won- 
 derfully extended; in shape they are like a dia- 
 mond, having at least one hundred surfaces, by 
 means of which they are enabled to take within 
 their sphere of vision a great number of ob* 
 jects. 
 
 The optic nerves of fish far surpass in magni- 
 tude and power those of terrestrial animals ; Dr. 
 Monro, who has written professedly upon the 
 subject, says that the weight of the eye of a cod, 
 and the depth of its axis are equal to those of an 
 ox ; added to which there is a substance called 
 tipitum placed at the bottom of the eye, which 
 it is supposed acts like a mirror in reflecting the 
 luminous rays, so as to enable the other parts of 
 the organ of the eye to condense them into a 
 
 H 3 focus 
 
102 
 
 focus : by these means the concentration of the 
 light to one point is so great that fish can see 
 and distinguish distinctly objects at night; and 
 it is probably with a view that they should be con- 
 stantly on their guard, and be better able to avoid 
 those animals to which they serve as prey that 
 they are destitute of eye-lids. 
 
 The optic power of serpents and of birds in 
 general, and more especially of the predacious 
 order, is so well known as scarcely to require 
 any detail.* 
 
 * Mr. Barber, in the year 177 S, being in company with se- 
 veral gentlemen in Bengal, whilst on a shooting party killed a 
 wild hog, which they left close to their tent, on the surface of 
 the earth ; in less than one hour after it had been killed, at the 
 time that the sky was so serene that there was not a cloud ob- 
 servable, a small dark spot at an immense distance in the air, 
 attracted 'their notice; this spot gradually increased in size, and 
 they soon found that it was a vulture which was flying in a di- 
 rect line towards the dead animal on which it immediately 
 alighted for the purpose of devouring. In less than an hours 
 time seventy vultures came from all directions, some horizon- 
 tally but the major part descended from the upper regions, in 
 which a few minutes before, no appearance of them was dis- 
 cernable. 
 
 such 
 
103 
 
 Such, indeed, is the exquisite sensibility of the 
 eye of birds, that they are provided with a mem- 
 brane (the membrana nictitans), which they 
 are enabled to spread over the external surface 
 of it, so as to protect the retina from the injuries 
 which it might sustain on particular occasions 
 from the irritation of the solar rays ; and we all 
 lenow that the owl and other birds are unable 
 to bear the light of day, and that they conse- 
 quently venture abroad during the night season 
 only. 
 
 The extraordinary faculty which these organs 
 of sense possess, is manifested under a multitude 
 of circumstances, which almost challenge our 
 credibility. Carrier pklgeons have been trans- 
 ported to different and remote parts of different 
 countries, and upon being released from their 
 confinement have returned with a letter round 
 their necks to the very spot from whence they 
 had been transported. The olfactory powers of 
 dogs of particular species are equally certain; 
 they are enabled to follow with the greatest ra- 
 pidity the game which they pursue by the efflu- 
 
 h 3 via 
 
104 
 
 via on the surface ; and however extraordinary 
 it may appear, I have been assured that a dog 
 belonging to a regiment, which it was accom- 
 panying in its march from Gloucester to Green- 
 wich, and which had been stolen in the Borough, 
 after making its escape, returned, two days 
 after to the head quarters at Gloucester, 
 where it was received by an officer who had 
 been left behind. 
 
 It is unnecessary for me to go into a more par- 
 ticular detail of the power which the organs of 
 sense in animals possess ; it would however 
 lead to this general conclusion, that they are far 
 more active and acute than they are in the human 
 species. 
 
 Without the intervention of these organs of 
 sense it is impossible that animals could obtain 
 any knowledge of external objects ; without the 
 eye of colour, without the ear of sound, without 
 the olfactory sense of flavour, without the ton- 
 gue of sapid bodies, and without the sensitive 
 nerves of sensation ; this sentient power seems 
 
 in- 
 
105 
 
 inherent in the nerves which the organs of 
 sense contain, and are the seat in which the 
 proximate cause of sensation actually abides. 
 The cause of sensation as I have before explained 
 does not abide in the external substance, but 
 in the organ by which the impression is receiv- 
 ed ; it is owing to this sensitive power that we 
 behold animals display fondness and aversion, 
 action and remission, appetite and inanition: it 
 is by the energy of these organs, that animals 
 are able to distinguish without experience in 
 an intuitive manner, not only the fitness of the 
 medium in which by nature they are destined to 
 reside, but the substances also which are best 
 fitted for the support and nourishment of their 
 frame; by which the duck and the chick in ova 
 after having pecked open the shell in which they 
 were enclosed, take different directions ; the one 
 waddles into the water the other hops into the 
 barn ; that the infant as soon as it is born ex- 
 presses by the motion of its tongue and lips its 
 wants and its appetites, why it selects milk and 
 rejects vinegar ; that we behold in the leech its 
 fondness for blood and its aversion to salt. 
 
 It 
 
106 
 
 It is by the perfection of this sensitive power 
 which these organ s of sense con tain,that th eir ener- 
 gy is strong, and that the gratification of the appe- 
 tite is the object to which all their actions tend, 
 ai:d the motive by which they are impelled; by 
 «ense without reason, by blind impulse, by fatal 
 necessity, by brutal instinct; the final cause of 
 which seems to be the gratification of the appe- 
 tite as the means, and the propagation of the 
 species as tlie end. 
 
 With the human species it is far otherwise ; 
 the inferiority of the organs of sense in man with 
 relation to those belonging to animals in general, 
 and the lower order in particular, as well as the 
 faculties of strength and of motion, of sensation 
 and of propagation, evidently prove that a mere 
 animal existence is not his true destination. If 
 the end of human existence depended on the 
 extent and perfection of living power, he would, 
 in that case not only be inferior to the brute, 
 but the brute itself would be inferior to the ve- 
 getable species : if it depended on the extent 
 ana perfection in the organs of sense, the condi- 
 tion 
 
107 
 
 tion of the brutes would be far superior to the 
 condition of man, since the organs of sense in the 
 one are far more perfect than they are found to 
 exist in the other. 
 
 What man is there whose digestive organs are 
 equal in power to those of animals in general. 
 I have seen the stomach of a cod contain a 
 large haddock, the haddock to have within its 
 stomach a whiting, and the whiting a smelt. 
 The shark has been known at one morsel to 
 devour a man, and the large boa snake has swal- 
 lowed, without any mastication, animals of consi- 
 derable magnitude, not only pigs and deer, but 
 a buffalo also. 
 
 With respect to the power in the organs of sense, 
 the superiority of brutes over the human species 
 is equally evident. What man is there whose 
 eye is equal in acuteness to predacious birds, or 
 to the animals of the feline race? whose olfactory 
 organs can bear any comparison with many 
 species of dogs? whose muscles are equally 
 strong as those of the lion or the elephant; an 
 
 ele- 
 
103 
 
 elephant by the power of its proboscis will raise 
 with the greatest ease a thirty two pounder ; 
 and a lion, by a stroke of his paw, will break 
 the back bone of a horse, seize, and carry him 
 off between his jaws, and afterwards devour him 
 for food ; what individual is there whose loco 
 motive powers are equal to those of the most 
 sluggish greyhound? whilst our best pedestrians 
 believe that they have performed feats the most 
 astonishing, by walking for four or five succes- 
 sive days forty or fifty miles, assisted by inter- 
 vals of sleep and generous diet — different kinds 
 of fish will traverse, without resting or sleeping, 
 from one continent to another; and it is a well 
 known fact that the same shark has followed the 
 track of the same ship from theindian ocean to the 
 English channel, in order to devour the offal by 
 which it was allured, and which had been thrown 
 overboard. 
 
 If the comparison between vegetables and 
 animals, and especially the human species, were 
 made, w T ith respect to the means by which their 
 wants are supplied, we should be led to admit 
 
 the 
 
109 
 
 the self sufficiency of the one and the total in- 
 digency of the other ; whilst vegetables flourish 
 and evolve for months, years, and even centu- 
 ries, by means of fluids only, — of the simple nour- 
 ishment of water and of air, which they prin- 
 cipally receive through the medium of the soil, 
 the latter require not fluids only, but solids also. 
 In the one the conversion of the food from a 
 a common to a living state is accomplished by 
 the easiest possible means, in the other the 
 agency of different organs is necessary before 
 the process of assimilation can be accomplish- 
 ed. Whilst the former flourish and propa- 
 gate without the necessity of having organs of 
 apprehension, on the contrary such is the imper r 
 feet condition of the latter in these respects, that 
 without organs of apprehension, they could not 
 possibly obtain the means of support, they would 
 perish for want, without fulfilling the end of 
 their existence. 
 
 f ' If we were to descend to particulars we 
 should be at once convinced of the indigency 
 of the higher order of animals, in the propagat- 
 ing 
 
110 
 
 ing power which they possess with relation to 
 those of a lower class, and more especially to 
 vegetables in general. An elephant seldom pro- 
 duces more than one young in the course of two 
 years, whilst, on the contrary, rabbits propagate 
 every six weeks : this power increases in an in- 
 finite degree as we descend in the scale of ani- 
 mation. Hens frequently lay forty or fifty eggs 
 in one season, and when we reflect that pigeons can 
 hatch nine times in one year, it appears that 
 they can multiply their species, in four years, 
 near fourteen thousand times. 
 
 In the amphibia this prolific power is equally 
 observable; there was a turtle killed in London 
 a few years ago out of which two thousand five 
 hundred eggs were obtained: the quantity of 
 ova that fish evolve is so immense that they are 
 often known to cover, for the space of many 
 leagues, the surface of the ocean. We all see 
 the multitude of maggots that are generated in 
 rotten cheese, and of different insects that are 
 produced in different substances which are under 
 going the procees of putrifaction and fermenta- 
 tion 
 
Ill 
 
 tion ; and a single mite has been known in the 
 course of a few days to re-produce its species 
 at least one thousand times. 
 
 If we cast our eyes on the surface of the earth 
 we shall be convinced of the prolific powers of 
 vegetables and of the lower order of animals, 
 with relation to those of an higher class. One 
 single plant of elecampane shall frequently 
 produce in one season three thousand seeds, 
 the poppy three thousand four hundred, the 
 sun-flower four thousand, the tobacco plant 
 has been known to bring to maturity fcrty 
 thousand three hundred and twenty seeds. — 
 The astonishing power with which God has 
 endued the vegetable creation, to multiply 
 its different species is more especially manifest- 
 ed in the elm ; it is said, by Dr. Clark, that this 
 tree produces upwards of one thousand five hun- 
 dred million of seeds, and each of these seeds has 
 the power of producing the same number. How 
 astonishing is this produce! at first one seed is de- 
 posited in the earth ; from this one a tree springs, 
 which in the course its vegetative life produces one 
 
 thou- 
 
112 
 
 thousand five hundred and eighty-four millions 
 of seeds, — this is the first generation. The se- 
 cond generation will amount to two trillions, 
 five hundred and ten thousand, and fifty- 
 six billions. The third generation will a- 
 mount to fourteen thousand six hundred and 
 fifty eight quadrillions, seven hundred and 
 twenty seven thousand* and forty trillions ! And 
 the fourth generation from these would amount 
 to fifty one sextillions, four hundred, and eighty- 
 one thousand three hundred and eighty -one 
 quin tillions, one hundred and twenty* three 
 thousand one hundred and thirty-six quadril- 
 lions ! sums too immense for the human mind 
 to conceive; aud when we allow the most con- 
 fined space in which a tree can grow, it appears 
 that the seeds of the third generation from one elm 
 would be many myriads of times more than suffi- 
 cient to stock thewhole superficies of all the planets 
 in the solar system! If it was not therefore for the 
 destruction which vegetables sustain, by the 
 various animals to which they afford nourishment 
 and to whose use they subserve, not only the 
 
 bosom 
 
113 
 
 bosom but the surface of the earth would form 
 a vast animated column. 
 
 Whatever the imagery of poets may have con* 
 ceived of the loves of plants, or been asserted by 
 Linnaeus of the sexual system, the truth con- 
 tinues to be very questionable and uncertain. 
 The various modes by which the species are mul- 
 tiplied, and the destitute state of nervous energy 
 in the parts which are concerned in that process 
 decidedly prove that they are not only insensi- 
 ble to any feeling but, altogether unconscious of 
 the actions which they perform ; if any nervous ar- 
 rangement has an actual existence in them it does 
 not extend throughout the whole of the system 
 but is confined to the efflorescence alone, at the 
 particular times, when the corrolla is unfolded, 
 and when the system is about to fulfil the end 
 of its existence, in the production of fructifica- 
 tion: how debile and limited must this nervous 
 power be conceived, when we reflect on 
 the immoveable spot to which vegetables are 
 fixed, and the short life the efflorescence is 
 suffered to enjoy ; it is no sooner arrived at its 
 
 i adolescence, 
 
114 
 
 adolescence than its acme of perfection is attain- 
 ed, and the period of caducity immediately en- 
 sues. The system proceeds from germination 
 to fructification, from fructification to death, in a 
 regular and unbroken tenor, without possessing 
 so far as we can detect, any opposing or con- 
 troling power, by whose energy the vital actions 
 can be arrested or suppressed.* 
 
 By the condition of animals, as well as of the 
 human species itself during sleep, and more es- 
 pecially as they subsist in the foetal state, some 
 idea may be formed of the nature of vegetable 
 existence : the foetus extracts nourishment from 
 the maternal system to which it is attached as 
 a cherry to the parent stock. Although it 
 possesses organs of sense it is destitute of feel- 
 ing; and with organs of consciousness and of 
 apprehension, it neither reflects on the means 
 of supporting itself or is sensible of its own ex- 
 istence ; an animal in the foetal state is situated 
 in a manner exactly like to an adult in a 
 profound sleep, and both resemble vegetable 
 life. During sleep all the organs which sub- 
 
 * Mr. A. Knight has decidedly proved that vegetables have no 
 sensation. 
 
 serve 
 
115 
 
 serve to the growth and nutrition of the- system 
 perform their functions more perfectly than they 
 are found to do during* a state of watchfulness* 
 Respiration and digestion, absorption and circu- 
 lation, secretion as well as excretion go on with-' 
 out the energy of the will ; the energy of the will 
 has a tendency to impede these different func- 
 tions in their course: it is not the existence of 
 these organs which subserve to these purposes, 
 which constitute the distinguishing characteris- 
 tic between vegetables and animals, as Mr. 
 Hunter imagined. However varied these organs 
 maybe which subserve to the growth and support 
 of the system in animals, from what they are 
 in vegetables, they all subserve the same use, and 
 are regulated by the same laws: in all they are 
 intended to build and to erect a system 
 in the best possible way, fitted and adapted to 
 perform certain determinate ends. It is because 
 the ends are different in each that there exists 
 a diversity in the means ; whilst the existence of a 
 sensitive principle, of which a nervous system is 
 the immediate recipient, to me appears to 
 form the distinction between the one and the 
 i 2 other ' 
 
116 
 
 other, and not the existence of a stomach, as 
 Mr. Hunter supposed, so the magnitude of the 
 brain with relation to the organs of sense, forms 
 the principal grounds of difference between irra- 
 tional and rational animals, between brutes and 
 the human species. In the larvae and zoop- 
 hytes, and that large and intermediate class of 
 beings which connect the vegetable with the 
 animal kingdom, although there is a structure 
 of a nervous appearance, which is expanded over 
 the whole surface, the existence of a brain, is 
 not discernible; as we advance, however, from 
 these inferior orders of beings to those of a higher 
 class the existence of nerves and of brain, as or- 
 gans separate and distinct, may easily be traced ; 
 the brain increases in magnitude from insects 
 to fish, from fish to birds, from birds to qua- 
 drupeds, from quadrupeds to bipeds, from 
 the black to the white of the human species. 
 
 The physiologists who first directed their at- 
 tention to this subject, proceeded on wrong 
 data; instead of comparing the magnitude of the 
 brain with relation to the size of the nerves which 
 
 proceed 
 
117 
 
 proceed from it, they compared the relation which 
 it bore to the aggregate weight of the body. It is 
 not therefore surprizing that from data such as 
 these the most inconclusive reasonings should 
 have been made. To Professor Soemmering 
 considerable merit is due, for having put the 
 subject upon its true footing; he it was who first 
 pointed out that the magnitude of the brain with 
 relation to the nerves of sense which proceeded 
 from it, was the true point from whence the 
 comparison was to be made; it was from this 
 mode of investigation that it was found that 
 although the most irrational systems have the 
 largest nerves of sense, they have the smallest 
 brain, and on the contrary, that the highest 
 orders of animals have the largest brain with 
 organs of sense comparatively small. In the 
 snail the brain is composed of a congrega- 
 tion of nervous fibrils, which terminate in 
 a sort of trunk of a semicircular structure. 
 A shark that weighs 300lbs. it is said has a 
 brain that does not weigh more than three 
 ounces, and in fish in general the brain occu- 
 pies a small part only of the whole cranium. 
 Redder says that the weight of the brain of an 
 
 t 3 ox 
 
118 
 
 ox to that of its body is as 1 to 1154; and 
 Blumenbatch asserts that the largest brain 
 which he ever saw of an horse, weighed only 
 one pound four ounces; in the human species 
 on the contrary, Baron Haller observes, that in 
 a boy six years old, whose body weighed fifty 
 pounds the brain weighed two pound three ounces 
 and a half, and when it is fully developed, it 
 may generally be averaged in each individual at 
 the rate of four pounds. 
 
 Whoever contemplates with attention the ac- 
 tual state of things will be led to conclude that 
 all the phenomena which are cognizable to our 
 senses, that all the productions which nature 
 exhibits to our view, are effects only of pre-ex- 
 isting causes. That re-action, for example is 
 the effect of elasticity, expansion of expansi- 
 bility, organization of life, sensation of sensibi- 
 lity, and intellection of intellect; instead how- 
 ever of considering that the organs which ani- 
 mated beings possess were constructed as 
 means with a view to ends ; by the anatomist 
 and physiologist the organs which receive the 
 participation of the*se powers, are consider- 
 ed 
 
119 
 
 ed in the same light as a builder does the 
 materials of which the carcase of a house is 
 made; instead of ascribing to these principles 
 the effects which they produce, it is the ma- 
 terials alone of which the machine is built to 
 which the whole power is referred: this silly 
 hypothesis is at once refuted, by the total im- 
 possibility which exists of giving a rational an- 
 swer to this simple question ; to the question 
 which I have often had occasion to put to many 
 of our physiologists, w r ho entertain different op- 
 pinions ; What is the cause of organization? 
 what is the cause that the multitude of seeds 
 and of eggs which are deposited in the same 
 soil and exposed to the same air, are able to 
 act upon the different substances by which they 
 are surrounded ; to convert them from a dead to 
 a living state, from a state of dispersion to a state 
 of combination, from a tabula rasa to organiza- 
 tion and form, from chaos itself into symmetry 
 and order, and from a multitude of separate 
 parts into one whole system, total and complete? 
 Although I have frequently heard much inge- 
 nuity displayed in reasoning upon this super- 
 
 t 4 structure, 
 
120 
 
 structure, I have often witnessed much folly 
 and ignorance in attempts to account for the 
 foundation of it; instead of supposing that the 
 different organs which different beings possess are 
 the recipients only of these different powers, and 
 that the matter of which they are composed 
 would without them be as imbecile and inert as 
 the shoe is without the foot, or as the musical 
 instrument is without the art or skill of the 
 musician : it is^the matter alone to which the 
 whole power is referred. An hypothesis such 
 as this is not more absurd than that which is 
 assumed, that the organs with which living beings 
 are endowed are the cause primary and efficient 
 of which vitality and intellect are the effect. With 
 as much reason might it be affirmed that the pen 
 with which I write moves my hand, instead of my 
 hand moving the pen ; that the top moves the 
 whip, instead of the whip moving the top ; that 
 language is the cause of which rationality is the 
 effect, that the nucleus of the earth as well as 
 the dirt and mud upon its surface are the causes 
 of which vitality is the effect; that the whole 
 material world is in fact the great first cause of 
 
 which 
 
121 
 
 which the Almighty is the secondary or instru- 
 mental cause; that is to say, that the second 
 cause is the cause of the first, and that the ef- 
 fect produced is the cause of the cause. 
 
 It evidently appears these gentlemen begin 
 where they ought to end : instead of attributing 
 inertness to matter, they make it the first cause 
 of motion ; they behold it destitute of form and 
 of fabricating power, and yet refer organization 
 to its imbecility ; they see it matter impelled 
 and yet they make it impelling matter; instead 
 of considering it the last and lowest of things, 
 they make it the first and the best : instead of 
 separating the cause from the effect, they con- 
 stantly confound both together; they mistake 
 the thing produced for the power -producing, 
 the fact (the thing done), for the law. Instead 
 of putting confusion into order they put order into 
 confusion. The consequences of this false philoso- 
 phy are manifested by the puerile knowledge 
 which we possess, being entirely circumscribed 
 to effects only, without any knowledge of cause, 
 to ends without means, to history without defi- 
 nition, 
 
122 
 
 nition, to definition without axiom, and finally 
 to a nomenclature which never designates the 
 nature of the thing which it is designed to 
 proclaim. 
 
 It is high time that absurdities such as these 
 should be banished from our schools of science, 
 and the rising generation rescued from the con- 
 tamination which they in consequence suffer. 
 So long, however, as the false hypothesis con- 
 tinues to prevail, that matter is the cause of 
 which life and soul are the effects, no hopes 
 whatever can be entertained of any philosophical 
 reformation. 1 nevertheless will maintain that 
 these opinions are not the offspring of ignorance 
 simply, but of two-fold ignorance, of that state 
 of ignorance by which men persevere in error 
 without being conscious of it, and which seers 
 the mind against conviction and reproof: to me 
 however it appears that if the soul contained 
 parts, it must be divisible, and if it were divi- 
 sible it would be destructible, and if it was de- 
 structible it would be a composite, and if it 
 were a composite it would have the triple di- 
 mensions 
 
123 
 
 mensions of length, breath, and thickness, as the 
 common attributes belonging to matter in gene- 
 ral. If this was the case the accumulation of 
 ideas would necessarily be followed by an in- 
 crease in the bulk of the organ by which those 
 ideas were received : it is however very evident 
 that so far from the attributes of thle mind pro- 
 ducing or increasing the bulk in the body, that 
 the body by the exercise of the mind is rendered 
 more active and energetic; that instead of manifest- 
 ing to the organs of sense any sensible qualities, it 
 is altogether insensible to them : and instead of 
 being nourished like the organs of nutrition, the 
 food which is congenial to the nature of mind is 
 such alone as flows from reason and understand- 
 ing: it is therefore legitimate to conclude that 
 the soul is not corporeal, but immaterial; that 
 it is simple and without parts and consequently 
 indestructible and immortal, for dissolution 
 can only arise from the separation of one part 
 of a thing from another, but which can never 
 take place in a principle which is essentially 
 ♦simple. 
 
 If 
 
124 
 
 If the attributes of mind depend on organiza- 
 tion how is it possible that any permanent idea 
 of things can take place ? for those ideas could 
 never survive the duration of the particles of 
 matter which subsist in the organ by which 
 those ideas were received: memory therefore 
 could form no part of such a system* » 
 
 Experiments however go to prove that the 
 most solid, in common with the softer and more 
 fluid parts of the body, are in a state of constant 
 flow and change, that animals whose bones had 
 been tinctured and coloured red by the madder 
 with which they had been fed, had recovered 
 their usual complection in the course of seven 
 years after the madder had been discontinued: 
 we may from this infer that as the more tender 
 parts of the system are more rapidly carried 
 away, that consequently the recollection of 
 past events could never extend beyond that 
 period. Cases have also occurred when pati- 
 ents, in consequence of disease, have forgotten 
 recent events, and nevertheless possessed per- 
 fect recollection of those which had happened 
 
 long 
 
125 
 
 long before. A curious instance of this kind 
 happened to a man who was brought to St. 
 Thomas's Hospital with a concussion of his 
 brain ; by proper treatment he recovered ; it was 
 observed during the progress of his cure, that 
 although he spoke to the attendants it was in a 
 language which none of them understood; a 
 Welch milk woman who came into the ward, 
 having heard him speak, entered into conversa- 
 tion with him ; it was then fouud that the man 
 by birth was a Welchman, that he had left his 
 native land in his youth, that he had forgotten 
 his mother tongue, and that for the last thirty 
 years he had spoken the English language alone; 
 since the accident "of which he was recovered 
 he only remembered the events of his younger 
 days, but had entirely forgotten the English 
 language and the occurrences of the latter years 
 of his life. 
 
 The opinions which are entertained respect- 
 ing the materiality of the soul, have not even the 
 merit of novelty in them ; they have been enter- 
 tained by different men at remote periods, as 
 
 well 
 
126 
 
 well as in move modern days : by none however 
 have they been proved to be false and absurd 
 by arguments more legitimate than by Dr. S. 
 Clarke, a century and a halfago,in the controversy 
 which he maintained with Mr. Dodwel the ma- 
 terialist. In the hope that the force of his rea- 
 soning may produce the same conviction to 
 others that it has lone to me, I shall for 
 that purpose select a passage on the subject 
 from his valuable work : — 
 
 " That the soul," says he, " cannot possibly 
 be material, is demonstrable from the single con- 
 sideration of bare sense or consciousness itself; 
 for matter being a divisible substance, consist- 
 ing always of separable, nay, of actually sepa- 
 rate and distinct parts, it is plain that unless it 
 were essentially conscious, in which case every 
 particle of matter must consist of innumerable 
 separate and distinct consciousnesses, no sys- 
 tem of it, in any posible composition or division 
 can be one individual conscious being. For 
 supposing three or four hundred particles of 
 matter, at a mile or any given distance one from 
 
 another 
 
127 
 
 another, is it possible that all these separate 
 parts should, in that state, be one individual 
 conscious being? Suppose then all these par- 
 ticles brought together into one system, so as 
 to touch one another, will they thereby, or by 
 any motion or composition whatever, become 
 one whit less truly distinct beings than they 
 were when at the greatest distance? How then 
 can their being disposed in any possible system 
 make them one individual conscious being? If 
 you would suppose God, by his infinite power, 
 superadding consciousness to the united parti- 
 cles, yet still these particles, being really and 
 truly as distinct beings as ever, cannot be them- 
 selves the subject in which that individual 
 consciousness inheres : but the consciousness 
 can only be superadded by the addition of some 
 thing, which in all the particles must still itself 
 be but one individual being. The soul, there- 
 fore, whose power of thinking is undeniably one 
 individual consciousness, cannot possibly be a 
 material substance. If, however, it be supposed 
 that the soul is a material substance, and that 
 the brain, or any other part whatever is the 
 
 organ 
 
128 
 
 organ where it resides, it must evidently follow 
 that the quality of this organ must be made 
 up of the individual qualities of all its parts : 
 for example, the bulk of the body is made up 
 of the sum of the magnitude of all its parts ; 
 its motion is nothing but the sum of the mo- 
 tion of all its parts ; and if thinking or consci- 
 ousness can be supposed to be a quality in- 
 herent in a system of matter, it must be also the 
 sum and result of the thinking and cogitation 
 of all its separate parts. We should therefore 
 have as many distinct consciousnesses or minds 
 as there are particles of matter of which the 
 brain consists, an idea fanciful and false; for 
 composition or division ot magnitude varied in an 
 infinite manner to eternity, can produce nothing in 
 the whole system but magnitude, composition and 
 variation of motiom : nothing but motion, com- 
 position, and variation of figure, nothing but 
 figure, and so of every other quality whatever. 
 If however it be supposed that not the brain altoge- 
 ther, but one particle of it alone, is the seat of the 
 soul, &c. that one particle being divisible into two, 
 
 there 
 
129 
 
 there must consequently exist two souls, not 
 one soul in the same system, and that each must 
 think and be conscious apart and not to- 
 gether." 
 
 I shall not attempt to weaken the force of 
 Dr. Samuel Clark's arguments by adding to them 
 any observations of my own ; to every rational 
 and unprejudiced mind they will appear con- 
 clusive : that no modification whatever of matter 
 has of itself either the power of organizing itself 
 into form, much less of feeling and of thinking; 
 the analogy which exists between the vital or- 
 gans of animals, and the whole vegetable king- 
 dom, although it proves that the living princi- 
 ple by which the system was formed is of the 
 same nature in all, that it nevertheless is desti- 
 tute of sensation or of consciousness. With re- 
 spect to animals the case is totally different, the 
 actual existence of organs not only of sensa- 
 tion but of consciousness, show that they 
 both feel and think; the meerest worm that 
 crawls upon the surface of the earth feels a 
 consciousness of pleasure and of pain, of appe- 
 
 k tite 
 
130 
 
 tite and gratification, of security and of danger; 
 it not only seeks for the means of satisfying its 
 wants, but is conscious of the danger to which it 
 is exposed from different animals by whom it is 
 devoured or destroyed; we therefore see it shrink 
 beyond their reach. Mr. Locke observes " that 
 animals seem to have perceptions of particular 
 truths, and within very narrow limits the faculty of 
 reason; but We have no reason," says he, " for sup- 
 posing that their natural operations are performed 
 with the view to consequences, and therefore not 
 the result of a train of reasoning in the mind of 
 the animal. All the voluntary motions, on the 
 contrary, which animals perform, to me appear 
 the result of a motive Which exists in them, and 
 that the organs which they employ have objects 
 for their end. The acquisition of food and of 
 intercourse are the consequences of the natural 
 actions which we behold every animal display, it 
 is the nature of this impulse or motive, through 
 the power of which those actions are produced, 
 that constitutes the distinction in the appetites 
 of different animated beings, to the gratification ' 
 of which all their pursuits are especially directed. 
 
 The 
 
131 
 
 The extensive power in them which the organs of 
 sense possess are more especially calculated to 
 attain those ends which in the great scheme of 
 providence they are destined to perform: the 
 sense of want and of appetite which the organs 
 suffer, constitutes the impulse from whence all 
 their actions spring, and to the relief and grati- 
 fication of which all their actions are especially 
 directed. It is the power from whence the 
 impulse arises which may be called instinct. 
 It constitutes the principle, by the energy of 
 which certain organs are employed to perform 
 certain determinate actions with the view to cer- 
 tain ends or consequences ; they are impelled by 
 natural and blind impulse which they know 
 not and cannot resist ; by fatal necessity, by- 
 brutal appetites. 
 
 Beings such as these cannot be considered 
 accountable for the actions that they perform 
 more than vegetables, which neither feel or re- 
 flect; these actions are always limited and direct- 
 ed within the narrow limits of (their particular in- 
 stincts ; however varied in their direction in differ- 
 
 k 2 ent 
 
132 
 
 ent beings those instincts may be, they are invari- 
 ably the same throughout the life of the same indivi- 
 dual, as well as of all belonging to the same class, 
 and are at once perfect,not by previous instruction, 
 or even imitation, but by a sort of intuitive power 
 which is possessed throughout the whole race of 
 animated beings : every particular class therefore 
 perform the same actions in the same way, and 
 with the same degrees of perfection ; the works of 
 animals are indeed like the works of nature, so 
 perfect in their kind that they can bear the most 
 critical examination of the mechanic and mathe- 
 matician : no human art has ever been able to imi- 
 tate the wonderful machinery constructed by 
 the power of a bee, or the webb by the tenta- 
 cula of the spider. It has been well observed 
 by Dr. Reed, whose authority upon these sub- 
 jects must carry with it great weight, that every 
 manufactoring art amongst men, was invented by 
 some man, improved by others, and brought to 
 perfection by time and experience : the arts of 
 men vary in every age and in every nation, and 
 are known only to those men who have been 
 taught them ; but the manufactories of animals 
 
 differ 
 
133 
 
 differ in toto from those of man. No animal of 
 the species can claim the invention, and no one 
 ever brought any one improvement, or any 
 variation from the former practice ; every one 
 of the species has equal skill from the beginning 
 without teaching, without experience, and with- 
 out habits, and every one has its art by a kind 
 of inspiration ; not inspired with the principles 
 or rules of art, but with the ability of working 
 it to perfection without any previous knowledge 
 of its principles, rules, or ends. 
 
 If I were to enter into a particular examina- 
 tion of the corporeal means which are possess- 
 ed by the higher and lower order of beings, I 
 should be led to acknowledge the total indigen- 
 cy of the one, and the self-sufficiency of the 
 other. Whilst vegetables shed their seed upon the 
 soil, and fish deposit their spawn upon the wa- 
 ters, and different birds lay their eggs upon the 
 sand, such is the perfection of the living power 
 which they possess, that the aptitude in the me- 
 dium alone in which they are placed is in gene- 
 ral adequate to answer every purpose of their 
 k 3 evolution 
 
134 
 
 evolution and growth. In the higher orders of 
 beings, on the contrary, the evolution of the off- 
 spring during the whole period of gestation, is 
 totally indigent of parental aid. The difficulty 
 and concomitant danger of parturition progres- 
 sively increases from the most simple to the 
 most complicated system, from brutes to the 
 human species, and more especially from savage 
 to civil life. The labor and anguish of the maternal 
 sufferings, untill that awful and important pro- 
 cess is accomplished ; the lamentations and 
 cries of the infant as soon as it is born ; the total 
 incapacity to assist itself or to obtain its own 
 necessary wants, all prove the imperfection and 
 indigency of the human frame. 
 
 The sense of want which the organs feel, and 
 the impression from external objects are nearly 
 alike in the infant state of savage as of civil life, 
 all seem to have the same desires and the same pur- 
 suits, and at that early period human life is entirely 
 of an animal nature: it is equally the case with 
 savage nations in general ; amongst them the rules 
 of social order are entirely inverted ; the weak fall a 
 
 prey 
 
135 
 
 prey to the strong; women, instead of being the 
 companions, are the slaves of the men; rapine is 
 no crime where honesty is no virtue ; killing is 
 no murder where personal revenge is allowed, 
 and neither adultery or fornication are con- 
 sidered to constitute crimes, where promis- 
 cuous and incestuous intercourse are tolerated. 
 Amongst them intemperance is preferred to so- 
 briety, ignorance mistaken for knowledge, the 
 passions and appetites of youth preferred to the 
 wisdom and virtue of age. A state such as this 
 of degeneracy and of corruption may be consi- 
 dered the condition of man, when he allows him- 
 self to follow the pursuits alone to which he is 
 impelled by the force of sensual inclination. It 
 is this condition as St. Paul tells the Ro- 
 mans, in his letter to them, by which they were 
 degraded and debased: that they were impelled 
 to act by the force of passion without reason ; that 
 they had the propensities and followed the pur- 
 suits of the brute without his instinct; that 
 they led, in fact, a life of sense without reason ; 
 he tells them that there was a law in their mem- 
 bers which warred against the law of their minds, 
 
 k 4 that 
 
136 
 
 that the good, says he, that I do I would not, — 
 but the evil which I would not that I did. A 
 condition such as this is not the condition for 
 which man was designed ; it proves what he 
 7nay, not what he ought to become; it proves 
 that the more he indulges his senses, the power 
 of his mind becomes progressively weaken- 
 ed, that instead of attaining the prerogative of 
 being a free agent, he continues in the condi- 
 tion of a child, or that of a man who lives like 
 a brute, impelled and chained down by that 
 fatal necessity of sin which he cannot avoid. 
 
 Although there are many parts in Mr. Locke's 
 book that have a tendency to favour the doctrine 
 that human actions are the result of necessity, 
 which the individual cannot prevent, it is not 
 always the case ; for on many occasions he is 
 either driven or led to acknowledge the free 
 agency of man : " This I think," says Mr. Locke, 
 " is at least evident, that we find in ourselves a 
 power to begin or forbear, continue or end seve- 
 ral actions of our minds or motions of our bodies, 
 
 barely 
 
137 
 
 barely by a thought or preference of the mind, 
 ordering, or, as it were commanding, the doing, 
 or not doing, such or such a particular action. 
 The power which the mind has thus to order 
 the consideration of any idea, or the forbearing 
 to consider it, or to prefer the motion of any 
 part of the body to its rest, and vice versa, in any 
 particular instance, is what we call the Will."* 
 Miserable indeed would be the condition of 
 man if the fatal necessity to obey the force of 
 passion to which the sensualist and the de- 
 praved are doomed, extended to the whole race; 
 if he was destitute of the power of directing and 
 of regulating the ideas which in consequence 
 arise, or if none subsist but what were excited by 
 objects of sense. 
 
 It has been well observed by Dr. Gregory, 
 on the inconsistency of the Fatalists, that if this 
 were the case there could be no variety, and 
 scarcely any change in the pursuits of men ; the 
 
 * Locke's Essay, c. iy. c. 21. 
 
 thoughts 
 
138 
 
 thoughts must flow from each other in one un- 
 interrupted series, and man could not be an ac- 
 countable, and scarcely a rational being. It is 
 however very plain that we have a power of in- 
 terrupting a train of thoughts and of dwelling 
 more intensely upon particular ideas, and even 
 of occasionally directing our reflections and 
 contemplations into new channels; and this 
 power alone is sufficient to constitute man a 
 free agent. 
 
 Although the organs of sense are the avenues 
 through which impressions from external objects 
 are first made, it is by the native vigor and power 
 of the mind from whence ideas are made to flow; 
 that whilst the spark comes from without, the 
 flame resides within; although it isset in motion 
 by external means, it is from the power of mind 
 alone by which those ideas and motions ought 
 to be directed. 
 
 It is the particular nature of this intellec- 
 tual power which constitutes the distinguishing 
 characteristic between excellence and mediocri- 
 ty 
 
139 
 
 ty, that ought to mark out the individual from the 
 species; the man from the brute, and form the 
 real source of distinction in the attributes by 
 which different men ought to be estimated. It 
 is to the motives which spring and originate from 
 the mind more than from the effects which are 
 produced by the organs as the instruments to 
 which we ought to attach merit or disgrace for 
 the actions they perform. It is from principles 
 such as these that we ought to conclude that the 
 man of science is better than the artist; the wis- 
 dom and temperance of age better than the ap- 
 petite and passion of youth ; and civil life better 
 than either savage or brutal. 
 
 It is by the proper exercise of these powers 
 of intellect directed and exerted on those ob- 
 jects which seem to be congenial to its nature, 
 by which man feels conscious that he consti- 
 tutes the first of all generated beings ; that al- 
 though excited by appetite and sense, he is ne- 
 vertheless able to resist, to subdue, and even 
 to act in opposition to those wants; often com- 
 pelling 
 
140 
 
 pelling the body to fast when it craves for food, 
 to receive medicines which convey impressions 
 nauseous and painful,exposes it to the inclemency 
 of the seasons, and to various dangers ; to la- 
 bour and to fatigue, and patiently to submit to 
 death itself. 
 
 Decus et decorum est pro patria mori. 
 
 It was this sentiment which prevailed in 
 Cato's mind, that enabled him to despise the 
 danger and the disgrace to which he was ex- 
 posed by the tyranny of Caesar ; he felt that the 
 soul, secure within itself, could smile at the 
 drawn dagger and defy its point ; that it could 
 flourish in immortal youth, unhurt amidst the 
 war of elements and the crush of worlds. 
 
 Admiting the truth of these observations, and 
 which must have been apparent to every reflect- 
 ing mind, the conclusion presses itself upon the 
 understanding with force irresistible, that the 
 final cause, or the end for which man was creat- 
 ed, is totally different to that of any other being 
 whatever ; instead of being confined like veget- 
 ables, to the production of the species, or as in 
 
 the 
 
141 
 
 the brutes to the gratification of the senses ; 
 these objects constitute in man the lowest of the 
 ends which he is designed to attain; those 
 which are most congenial to his nature, and 
 which form the true end of his existence, more 
 especially consist in the perfection of Ms mind, 
 in order that he may be qualified to adore the 
 Almighty and become acceptable to him. 
 
 Whilst the attributes of vegetables consist in 
 the living and vegetable principles alone, those of 
 brutes in the vegetative, the sensitive, and the 
 irrational; man, on the contrary, in addition to 
 these, possesses the intellective also ; and may 
 be defined " a rational soul in an animal body, 
 which it employs as its instrument" 
 
 Say, why was Man so eminently rais'd 
 
 Amid the vast creation? why empower'd 
 
 Thro' life and death to dart his watchful eye, 
 
 With thoughts beyond the limits of his frame; 
 
 But that th' Omnipotent might send him forth 
 
 In sight of Angels and immortal mind, 
 
 As on an ample theatre, to join 
 
 In contest with his equals ; who shall best 
 
 The 
 
142 
 
 TV task atchieve, the course of noble toils 
 By wisdom or by mercy pre-ordain'd.* 
 Might send him forth the sov'reign good to learn : 
 To chase each meaner purpose from his breast, 
 And thro' the mists of passion and of sense, 
 And thro' the pelting storms of chance and pain, 
 To hold straight on, with constant heart and eye 
 Still fixt upon his everlasting palm, 
 The approving smile of heaven? 
 
 Akenside's Pleas, of Irnag. 
 
 I • 
 
 * No doctrine has ever, perhaps, been more completely mis- 
 taken than that of predestination. By many it has been thought 
 that some there were who were elected and predestined to enjoy 
 every blessing in this life, and happiness in the next, notwith- 
 standing the wickedness of their conduct; others again that 
 were doomed to suffer every misfortune in this* state of existence 
 and to endure eternal damnation hereafter, however meritorious 
 their conduct might have been. If this explanation were true, 
 instead of the Almighty being what he is, all bounteous, wise, 
 and just, and the source of all goodness, it might rather be sup- 
 posed that he is the very devil himself, and the cause of all evil. 
 Great indeed is the error of those who judge in this way. It is Very 
 true that hi the general scheme of Providence predestination is 
 a doctrine especially foretold by revelation, that shall be the lot 
 of the elect ; but the elect grossly deceive themselves, if any there 
 ar6 who suppose themselves pre-elected ; the only way they can 
 make their election sure is by religion and the duties it enjoins. 
 It is not therefore particular men that are elected, but men of a 
 particular description, which description the gospel has parti- 
 cularly designated* 
 
 CHAP. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OF THE MEANS BY WHICH INDIVIDUALS AT- 
 TAIN THE END, OR FINAL CAUSE OF THEIR 
 EXISTENCE. 
 
 EDUCATION and instruction are the means 
 by which the final destination of man is attain- 
 ed, and by which the necessary media are found 
 to connect the dawn of reason to the full perfec- 
 tion of it. Education constitutes the genus of 
 which instruction is the species. Education 
 comprehends thegeneral habits,manners,and cus- 
 toms of the inhabitants, and from whence there 
 is a national character belonging to every people. 
 Instruction on the contrary is limited and con- 
 fined to the particular direction given to genius, 
 
 and 
 
144 
 
 and is the cause why particular classes of men 
 have the same habits, and different individuals 
 particular propensities and pursuits. Educa- 
 tion in fact bears the same relation to instruc- 
 tion that a whole does to a part, or that memory 
 does to recollection. Memory repesents things 
 past in general, recollection represents things 
 past in particular. The necessity of early dis- 
 cipline and instruction has been acknowledged 
 by the wise and the good of eveiy age. Solo- 
 mon declared " that if you train up a child in 
 the way it should go, and when he grows old 
 he shall not depart from it. By Horace, 
 
 Qui studet optatam cursu contingere Metam. 
 Multa tulit fecitque pucr. 
 
 In every species of knowledge whatever, the 
 most simple must be apprehended before the 
 most compound ; it is in learning this simple 
 and elementary knowledge for which early in- 
 struction is especially designed, in order that we 
 may be enabled to comprehend that which is uni- 
 versal. To every reflecting mind it must indeed be 
 obvious that all knowledge whatever which ap- 
 pertains 
 
145 
 
 pertained to science or to art, is reducible to gene- 
 ral principles as certainly as that every effect is 
 the consequence of some producing cause. — 
 Many men who have not learnt the principles of 
 particular sciences, can frequently assign rea- 
 sons, or the cause ivhy, for the effects which they 
 behold ; they seem intuitively to possess a de- 
 gree of science, and to attain rules by chance, 
 which instruction is especially designed to un- 
 fold. Mr. Harris, therefore, very accurately ob- 
 serves, that in the investigation of principles, we 
 are first taught to learn that every science, as 
 arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy, &c. 
 may be resolved into its theorem, every theorem 
 into its syllogism, every syllogism into its pro- 
 position, and every proposition into certain sim- 
 ple or single terms. 
 
 If we were to begin the discussion of any 
 branch of science before we have attained a 
 knowledge of simple terms, which are in them- 
 selves irresolvable, it is evident we should begin 
 in the middle ; and if we were to begin at the 
 theorem itself, before having attained a precise 
 
 l know- 
 
146 
 
 knowledge of a syllogism and of a proposition, 
 we should begin not merely at the middle but 
 at the very end : it is therefore simple terms 
 which constitute the base, the punctum saliens 
 from whence all scientific knowledge ought to 
 commence, and that beginning from other 
 data not only leads to hypothesis but is an in- 
 verted order of learning* 
 
 It is by the previous attainment of this simple 
 knowledge, that we become qualified to learn 
 the connecting media, of which the most com- 
 pound knowledge is composed ; by which the 
 extreme parts, the beginning and the end are 
 united, so as to form one whole. It -in this in- 
 vestigation that the office of science consists, 
 and which forms the true object of its pursuit. 
 
 Science therefore begins from principles and 
 proceeds through proper media to the conclu- 
 sion; from cause to effect, from things general 
 and universal to things particular and acci- 
 dental. 
 
 Things 
 
147 
 
 Things universal, or principles, consist of 
 simple undeniable truths respecting the identi- 
 ty of which every one who has the possession 
 of common seuse must give his unqualified as- 
 sent, and from their majesty and authority are 
 called axioms. The second thing consists in 
 the proposition and the theorem, which may be 
 deduced from those axioms, which are im- 
 mediately founded on them ; and finally the con- 
 clusion by which the things particular are de- 
 duced from things universal: the former forms 
 the base on which all scientific knowledge is 
 founded, the other is the road which leads to it, 
 through which a knowledge of the effects are ob- 
 tained, as they proceed from their producing 
 causes. 
 
 This power of the mind to learn and to be 
 instructed, by Mr. Harris is called natural ca- 
 pacity, and is an attribute common to all men ; 
 the superior facility of being taught, which some 
 possess above the rest is called genius; the 
 first transition or advances from natural capaci- 
 ty is called proficiency, and the end or comple- 
 
 l 2 tion 
 
148 
 
 tion of proficiency is called hahit : if such habit 
 be conversant about matter purely speculative 
 it is called science ; if it descends from specula- 
 tion to practice it is called art, and if such 
 practice be conversant in regulating the passions 
 it is called moral virtue. Before the habit of 
 moral virtue can be attained, there are many 
 appetites to be curbed, various propensities to 
 be corrected and many temptations to be resis- 
 ted. It was in sciences such as these that the 
 ancients laboured with such ardour and success. 
 
 Although in latter days the christian dispen- 
 sation has superseded the necessity of the an- 
 cient philosophy; it has nevertheless been the 
 object of study and of admiration of the best 
 and wisest of our divines. I shall rank amongst 
 these the celebrated names of Cudworth, Moore, 
 and Norris, of Bishop Newton, and of that great 
 defender of the christian faith, Bishop Horsley, 
 whom I once heard declare, that his philosophy 
 was Plato's, but his creed St. Johns. Those 
 ancient sages discovered, what divine revelation 
 has siince proclaimed, they discovered the im- 
 
 soul, 
 
149 
 
 materiality and consequent immortality of the 
 soul, and they even aspired to trace the great chain 
 of effects which exist throughout the whole system 
 of nature to their producing causes, so as to 
 connect the first cause with the last matter, and 
 the systems of philosophy by Pythagoras, Soc- 
 rates, and Plato, will ever be acknowledged to 
 consitute the most stupendous monuments of 
 human wisdom that have ever been offered to 
 the world. I am not competent to the task of 
 giving an analysis of the means which they em- 
 ployed, by which they could attain a knowledge 
 of mind, independently of matter, and more 
 especially of the Godhead itself. 
 
 The resemblance that subsists between the 
 Platonic doctrine and the Christian, Dr. Hors- 
 iey observes, " may seem a wonderful fact, 
 which may justly draw the attention of the seri- 
 ous and inquisitive; and if it should be deemed 
 incredible, as well it may, that reason, in her 
 utmost strength, should ever ascend so high as 
 to attain even to a distant glympse of truths 
 
 l 3 which 
 
150 
 
 which have ever been reckoned the most mys- 
 terious discoveries of revelation; it will become 
 a question of the highest importance to deter- 
 mine by what means the Platonic school came 
 by those notions of the Godhead, which, had 
 they been of a later date than the commence- 
 ment of Christianity, might have passed for a 
 very mild corruption of the christian faith ; but 
 being in truth much older, have all the appear- 
 ance of a near, though very imperfect view of the 
 doctrine which was afterwards current in the 
 christian church." This learned prelate pro- 
 ceeds to say, "that the enquiry becomes more 
 important when it is discovered, that these no- 
 tions were by no means peculiar to the Plato- 
 nic school, that the Platonists pretended to be 
 no more than the expositors of a more ancient 
 doctrine, which is traced from Plato to Par- 
 menides ; from Parmenides to his master of the 
 Pythagorean sect; from the Pythagoreans to 
 Orpheus, the earliest of the Grecian mystago- 
 goues ; from Orpheus to the secret lore of the 
 Egyptian priests, in which the foundation of the 
 
 Orphic 
 
161 
 
 Orphic theology was laid. Similar notions of 
 a triple principle prevailed in the Persian and 
 Chaldaen theology, and vestiges even of the wor- 
 ship of a Trinity were discernible in the Ro- 
 man superstition in a very late age. This wor- 
 ship the Romans had received from their Tro- 
 jan ancestors, for the Trojans brought it with 
 them into Italy from Phrygia ; in Phrygia it 
 was introduced by Dardanus, so early as in 
 the ninth century after Noah's flood. Darda- 
 nus carried it with him from Samothrace, where 
 the personages that were the objects of it were 
 worshipped under the Hebrew name of Cabirim. 
 Who these Cabirims might be, has been a matter 
 of unsuccessful enquiry to many learned men ; 
 the utmost that is known with certainty is, that 
 they were originally three, and were called by 
 way of eminence, the great or mighty ones; for 
 that is the import of the Hebrew name. And 
 of the like signification is their Latin appellation, 
 Penates; dii per quos penitusspiramus, per quos 
 habemus corpus, per quos rationem animi pos- 
 sidemus. Dii qui sunt intrinsecus atque in in- 
 timis penetralibus coeli. Thus the joint wor- 
 
 l 4 ship 
 
152 
 
 ship of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the triad of 
 the Roman capitol, is traced to that of the 
 three mighty ones in Samothrace, which was 
 established in that island, at what precise time 
 it is impossible to determine; but earlier, if 
 Eusebius may be credited, than the days of 
 Abraham. The notion therefore of a Trinity, 
 more or less removed from the Christian faith, 
 is found to have been a leading principle in all 
 the principal schools of philosophy, and is the 
 religion of almost all European nations." 
 
 »# 
 
 From the very nature of the ancient philosophy 
 it must appear to have been inadequate to pro- 
 
 * In the year 1784, Mr. Charles Wilkins translated at Ben- 
 ares an ancient Hindoo poem, called the Bhaquat Geeta, sup- 
 posed to have been five thousand years old, in which the incar- 
 nation of the Deity is evidently proclaimed; and most of the 
 principal tenets of the .Christian religion. This very curious 
 work is now very scarce; but Mr. Morrice, in his Indian Anti- 
 quities, a work of great labour and ability, has given very copi- 
 ous extracts from it, with illustrations, for the benefit of those 
 who have not the advantage of a christian education, or attained 
 any knowledge of the Platonic philosophy; from which source 
 it is probable that it is originally derived. 
 
 Vide Tracts by the late Bishop Horsley. 
 
 duce 
 
153 
 
 tluce on mankind any general influence; whilst 
 it tended to separate the individual from the 
 mass, it was impossible that the mass of the 
 people, through the medium of a philosophy 
 which they did not understand, could obtain 
 any knowledge of the Almighty. 
 
 Before the Christian aera the world for the 
 most part was governed by the law of nature and 
 reason ; the ignorance of mankind in gene- 
 ral, which was unequal to the task of attaining 
 the knowledge of philosophy, left his moral con- 
 duct without restraint, and the aberrations of 
 philosophers themselves which had in a great 
 measure perverted the Mosaic law, had intro- 
 duced idolatry in lieu of religion. 
 
 To destroy the idolatry of those days, to lead 
 men to God, to atone for the sins of the world, 
 and to save from the general condemnation 
 those that would believe and repent ; it pleased 
 the Almighty, when the fulness of time was 
 come, to send his son Jesus Christ, into the 
 world to seek and to save that which was lost; 
 
 who 
 
154 
 
 who was equal to the Father respecting his God- 
 head, but unequal to the Father respecting his 
 manhood. Although perfect God he neverthe- 
 less was perfect man, having a reasonable soul 
 in human flesh subsisting. A dispensation 
 which by the Almighty was intended to be a 
 rule of action to man, in order that he might 
 obtain a knowledge of his Maker, must of neces- 
 sity be amenable to his capacity; he therefore 
 took our nature upon him ; it was this omnipo- 
 tent and self-existing Being who willed to be 
 incarnate in the seed of the woman, without the 
 ordinary means which are necessary for the 
 production of his creatures, that he came into the 
 world : — he came in the flesh, not of the flesh. 
 God was mChrist reconciling the world to himself; 
 manifesting his divinity by his miracles and 
 prophesies,* his precepts, and his example; 
 
 * The previous certainty of things to come is oneof those truths 
 which are not easily apprehended. The difficulty seems to arise/' 
 says the Bishop of St. Asaph, " from a habit that we have of mea- 
 suring all intellectual powers by the standard of human intellect. 
 There is nothing in thenatureof certainty, abstractly considered, to 
 connect it with past time or with the present, more than with the 
 future ;but human knowledge extends in so small a degree to future 
 things, that scarce any thing becomes certain to us till it is come 
 
 teaching 
 
155 
 
 teaching the way of salvation by means which 
 were amenable to the capacity of all. Regenera- 
 tion through grace, repentance through faith, re- 
 
 to pass, and therefore we are apt to imagine that things acquire 
 their certainty from their accomplishment. But this is gross 
 fallacy. The proof of an event to us always depends either up- 
 on the testimony of others or the evidence of our own senses ; 
 but the certainty of events in themselves arises from their natural 
 connexion with their proper causes. Hence to that great Being 
 who knows things not by testimony, not by sense, but by their 
 causes ; as being himself the first cause, the source of power and 
 activity to all other causes; to Him everything that shall ever 
 be, is at all times infinitely more certain than any thing either 
 past or present can be to any existing being, and some of those ne- 
 cessary truths which are evidenced to every man, not by his 
 bodily senses, but by that internal perception which seems to be 
 the first act of created intellect. 
 
 This certainty, however, is to be carefully distinguished from a 
 true necessity inherent in the nature of the thing. A thing 
 is necessary when the idea of existence is included in the idea of 
 the thing as an inseparable part of it. Thus, God is necessary; 
 the mind cannot think of him at all without thinking of him as 
 existent. The very notion and name of an event excludes this 
 necessity, which belongs only to things uncaused. The events 
 of the created universe are certain, because sufficient causes do, 
 not because they must, act to their production. God knows 
 this certainty, because he knows the action of all these causes, 
 inasmuch as he himself begins it, and perfectly comprehends 
 those mutual connexions between the things he hath created, 
 which renders this a cause and that its effect. 
 
 demption 
 
156 
 
 demption by the atonement which he made of 
 himself, in order that through its efficacy all 
 that believed might inherit life eternal. 
 
 To the philosophers of those days, and more 
 especially to the Greeks, he pointed out the in- 
 sufficiency of human reason for the attainment 
 of divine knowledge: he told them to banish 
 from their minds the prejudices of their educa- 
 tion ; and to receive his doctrine like little chil- 
 dren in simplicity and in truth. The promulgation 
 of a doctrine such as that, and which was to spread 
 throughout the whole world, appeared so repug- 
 nant to the notion of the philosophy of those to 
 whom it was addressed that it could not be credit- 
 ed. To the Jews, who expected a Messiah in all 
 earthly grandeur, and not a victim to be sacri- 
 ficed, it was " a stumbling block ;" to the Greeks 
 -who sought for eternity through the energy of 
 reason, it was to them foolishness ; neither the 
 Jews or the Greeks comprehended how mi- 
 nisters (as the instruments who w r ere to be em- 
 ployed to preach this new religion) taken 
 from the lowest ranks of society could be qua- 
 lified 
 
157 
 
 lifted for such an office, fishermen, tent makers, 
 and our Saviour himself was afterwards 
 by them called the carpenter's son. It never 
 entered into their imagination that the weakness 
 of the means were employed in order to shew that 
 the divinity of the dispensation could not come 
 from them but from God ; and they never could 
 conceive that God would chuse " the foolish 
 things of this world to confound the wise, and the 
 weak things of this world to confound the things 
 that are mighty." 
 
 Whatever affinity may be supposed to exist 
 between the Platonic philosophy and the Chris- 
 tian dispensation, the one differs from the other 
 in points the most essential ; whilst the former 
 requires for its apprehension an intellect the 
 most gigantic, study and application the most 
 intense, learning and knowledge the most pro- 
 found ; the latter, on the contrary, by means of 
 that grace which the Almighty has vouchsafed 
 to bestow on those who in sincerity and in truth 
 seek for it, produces on the mind an immediate 
 capacity of receiving the truths of the gospel. 
 
 The 
 
158 
 
 The former therefore can only form the wisdom 
 of the few, the latter of the multitude, and con- 
 stitutes the hope and the consolation of the low 
 as of the high, of the ignorant as of the learned ; 
 if it were otherwise, mankind in general might 
 have cause to arraign the bounty of the Almigh- 
 ty, and complain of the unequal distribution of 
 his favours ; a dispensation which by him was 
 intended to be a rule of action to man, in order 
 that he might obtain a knowledge of his Maker, 
 it became a matter of justice that it should be 
 amenable to the capacities of mankind in gene- 
 ral. Grace therefore does to all, what philoso- 
 phy alone is unable to effect upon the individual ; 
 not by philosophy or vain conceit, but by puri- 
 fying the soul and qualifying it to receive the 
 influence of the holy spirit. These attributes 
 can no more be apprehended, by matter in gene- 
 ral, which is destitute of life, than by \egeU 
 ables, or by brutes in particular ; by veget- 
 ables which possess vitality without sensi- 
 bility, or by brutes who have sensibility with- 
 out intellect. The brute himself, no more than 
 man t who leads the life of a brute, whose whole 
 
 thoughts 
 
159 
 
 thoughts and actions are directed to the gratifi- 
 cation of his senses, and whose senses are never 
 gratified untill they are surfeited, can never in 
 that degraded state obtain any perception of 
 spiritual things, more than those amongst us who 
 believe that there subsists within them no other 
 power than what arises from the mere matter of 
 which they are composed ; the one can no more 
 have communion with the other, than the most 
 ignorant and uneducated amongst the sons 
 of men is able to understand the highest branches 
 of human knowledge ; to obtain, for example, 
 a perfect knowledge of sublime geometry, al- 
 though totally ignorant of lines and figures; 
 of all languages, without possessing any appre- 
 hension of sound ; and of all sciences without 
 any perception whatever of the truths or prin- 
 ciples on which they are founded. 
 
 Between the lowest degrees of instinct and of 
 sense, the offspring of animal existence and the 
 mind of man, there can be no understanding, 
 because there is no analogy between them ; the 
 most irrational animal is no more able to appre- 
 hend 
 
160 
 
 hend the knowledge of the most rational man ; 
 than the most rational man imitate the instinct of 
 the most irrational brute; the cause lays in the 
 ignorance of the one and the wisdom of the 
 other. No correspondence whatever can sub- 
 sist between beings whose natures are separat- 
 ed by a chasm so widely different. It is 
 with a view of adapting our meaning to the 
 level of the understanding of the brute by which 
 that information is to be received, that in our 
 intercourse with animals, we converse with 
 them in a silly unmeaning manner, because to 
 them a wise and intelligent conversation would 
 be unintelligible and foolish. Children therefore 
 or men who act like children, have animals more 
 immediately under controul, than the philoso- 
 gopher who is replete with wisdom and know- 
 ledge. 
 
 If the ordinary powers of the human mind 
 are so superior, as they unquestionably are, to 
 those of the most rational animals, by what an 
 immeasurable distance must the universal intel- 
 lect of Almighty God be separated from the 
 
 mind 
 
161 
 
 mind of man — the creator from the creature, 
 the infinite being from the being which is finite; 
 the most perfect intellection which proceeds 
 from the energy of the purest intellect is as the dust 
 of the earth, when it is compared to the divine 
 mind of the Almighty. The clod of earth on 
 which we stand, and the uttermost part of the 
 heavens is not a span long, in the relation which 
 man bears to God. If God therefore had not 
 manifested some portion of his attributes, by 
 means which are on a level to the capacity of 
 the human race, man must for ever have been 
 ignorant of his maker. He therefore " who at 
 sundry times, and in divers manners, hath 
 spoken unto the fathers by the prophets, hath 
 in these latter days spoken unto us by his Son/' 
 made of the same materials as ourselves, born 
 of a woman, obnoxious to human wants, and 
 liable to the same dangers. 
 
 As it must ever be considered, that in a christian 
 
 country the people should have a proper notion 
 
 M of 
 
162 
 
 of Christianity, I shall abstract an analysis from 
 a sermon on the incarnation, preached in this 
 parish on Christmas day, twenty seven years 
 ago^ by Dr. Horsley, the rector, and which puts 
 this subject in the clearest light:— 
 
 " It is not as the birth day of a prophet, that this day is 
 sanctified, but as the anniversary of that great event, which had 
 been announced by the whole succession of prophets from the 
 beginning of the world, and on which the predictions concerning 
 the manner of the Messiah's advent found their literal and com- 
 plete accomplishment: in which the miraculous conception 
 makes so principal a part ; it makes the foundation of the whole 
 distinction between the character of Christ in the condition of 
 a man, and that of any other prophet. Had the conception of 
 Jesus been in the natural way, had he been the fruit of Mary's 
 marriage with her husband, his intercourse with the Deity might 
 have been of no other kind than the nature of any other man 
 might have equally admitted; an intercourse which the 
 prophets enjoyed when their minds were enlightened by the ex- 
 traordinary influence of the holy spirit: the influence might 
 have been greater in degree, but it must have been the same in 
 kind. The holy scriptures speak in a very different language ; 
 they tell us, that the same God who spoke in times past by the 
 prophets, hath in these latter 'days spoken unto us by his Son; 
 evidently establishing a distinction of Christianity from preced- 
 ing 
 
163 
 
 ing revelations, upon a distinction between the two characters 
 of a Prophet of God, and of God's Son ; between Moses himself, 
 with whom Jehovah conversed face to face, and Jesus himself; 
 the former bears to the latter the relation of a servant to a son ; 
 but least this superiority should be mistaken for a superiority of 
 office on the side of the Son, we are told that the Son is *\ higher 
 than the angels, being the effulgence of God's glory, the ex- 
 press image of his person ; the God, whose throne is for ever and 
 ever, the sceptre of whose kingdom is a sceptre of righteousness." 
 Had Christ been a mere prophet, to have believed in Christ had 
 been the same thing as to believe in John the Baptist; the mes- 
 sages indeed announced on the part of God by Christ, and by 
 John the Baptist, might have been different, and the importance 
 of the different messages unequal, but the principle of belief in 
 either must have been the same. The intercourse which Christ 
 as a man held with God, was different in kind from that which 
 the greatest of the prophets ever had enjoyed; and this could 
 only have been produced by the eternal word, who was in the 
 beginning with God, and was God ; having so joined himself to the 
 holy thing which was formed in Mary's womb,* that the two 
 
 * Although revelation is the authority to which we should ap- 
 peal for divine knowledge, we are nevertheless not interdicted 
 the privilege of endeavouring to search for it -through aid of 
 human means, provided those means lead to a conformity with, 
 not to an opposition of holy writ; so far however from Revela- 
 tion being in contradiction to philosophy, true philosophy con- 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 natures, from the commencement of the Virgin's conception, 
 made one person. Between God and any living being, having 
 a distinct personality of his own, separate from the Godhead, 
 no other communion could obtain, than what should consist in the 
 action of the Divine Spirit upon the faculties of the separate 
 
 sists in confirming the truth of revelation. The revelation which 
 declared that ** in the beginning was the word, and the word was 
 With God, and the word was God, the same was in the beginning 
 with God, and that the word was made flesh and dwelt among 
 us, &c. &c." so far from being inconceivable to human appre- 
 hension, appears to me as easy to comprehend as any part of 
 the creation. It has been the especial object which I have had 
 in view, so far as I have gone, to prove that all the phenomena 
 which take place in the universe, are effects only of producing 
 causes; that these effects are ends, of which there of necessity 
 must have been a beginning; that the power which was from 
 the beginning is the cause to which the ultimate effect is to be 
 referred, (e. g.) Action is the effect, of which organization is the 
 cause; organization is the effect of which the principle of life is 
 the cause; thinking is an effect of which the thinking principle 
 is the cause; all the children of any one family are ends of 
 which their parents are the beginning; these parents are the 
 offspring of former parents, the succession therefore may be 
 traced of animals and of vegetables to first parents; to first pa- 
 rents which did not produce themselves, but which were pro- 
 duced by some other being : I say some other being, because 
 there is not any thing, save the one First and Universal Cause, 
 which can be the cause of itself. Admitting therefore that 
 Adam and Eve were the first parents of the human species, it 
 must follow, that as no created thing can be the cause of itself, 
 a time must have been, when the first vegetables were creat- 
 ed without seed, the first animals without intercourse: the of- 
 
165 
 
 person, as was enjoined by the prophets ; but Jesus according to 
 the primitive doctrine, was so united to the ever living word, 
 that the very existence of the man consisted in this union. 
 
 We find in scripture the characteristic properties of both na- 
 tures, the bumau and the divine, ascribed to the same person. 
 
 ganization and action of these bodies are nothing more than the 
 manifestation of the principles or causes by which they were 
 produced; these principles must therefore have existed in the 
 divine mind prior to their evolution, in the same manner as the 
 living principles both of vegetables and of animals, before or- 
 ganization and action ; these principles became manifested by th* 
 power which they possess of acting on the matter which has 
 the aptitude to be acted upon by them; the vegetable seed by 
 vegetable life; animal ova by animal life; the brain by intell- 
 ectual life. How much less difficult, is it not, to conceive, that the 
 Divine Being, he who was the immediate progeny of the Father, 
 -(and who formed with him one being, as the matter of light and 
 the sun form one whole), might be received into the seed of the 
 woman, as had been foretold by the ancient prophets; without 
 the aid of those ordinary means which are found necessary in 
 some of the lowest classes of animals. It willed the Son of 
 God to chuse the human species to constitute the instrument of 
 his power, because it was to the human species to which he 
 manifested himself, and for the salvation of which he came down 
 from heaven. Had his dispensation been intended for brutes or 
 for vegetables, it is very probable that he would have come into 
 the world in the body of a brute or of a vegetable; but being 
 intended for the human race, in order that it might be adapted 
 to the nature of the beings by which it was to be received; he 
 came in a human form independently of human means, of 
 the *eed of the woman without masculine cooperation. May 
 
 31 3 
 
166 
 
 We read of Jesus, that he suffered from hunger and from fatigue; 
 that he wept for grief, and was distressed with fear ; that he was 
 obnoxious to all the errors of humanity, except the propensity to 
 sin. John x. vii. And that we may in some manner understand 
 how infirmity and perfection should thus exist in the same per-? 
 son, we are told by St. John, that the " word was made flesh." 
 A man conceived in the ordinary way would have derived the 
 principles of his existence from the mere physical powers of 
 generation; but the union with the divine nature could not have 
 been the principle of an existence physically derived from 
 — ^ > — — 1 
 
 /fe»yve not be permitted to suppose that the whole visible world 
 ^ exhibits nothing more than so many passing pictures, of 
 which the principles are the prototypes or exemplers, and that 
 it is through the participation of them which matter has acquir- 
 ed, that it may be said to have obtained a semblance of im? 
 mortality. 
 
 May we not be allowed to credit those speculative men which 
 in times of old have told us, that it is in these comprehensive 
 and permanent principles (or forms, as they have been called), 
 that the Deity views at once without looking abroad, all possible 
 productions, both present, past, and future ; that this great and 
 Stupendous view is but a view of himself; where all things lie 
 envelloped in their principles or exemplers, as being essential to 
 the fulness of his universal intellect] n: if such be the case the 
 axiom which is so applicable to the materialist, Nil est in intellectu 
 quod non prius fuit in sensu, that there subsists nothing in intellect 
 which did not before subsist in sense, must be reversed, but we 
 ought rather to say, Nil est in sensu quod non prius fuit in intel- 
 lectu, that nothing exists in sense which did not pre-exist in, 
 intellect. 
 
Adam, and that intimate union of God and man in the Re- 
 deemer's person had been a physical impossibility. 
 
 " By the Redeemer's offering of himself as an expiatory sacri* 
 fee, it was necessary that the manner of his conception should 
 be such, that he should in no degree partake of the natural pol- 
 lution of the fallen race, whose guilt he came to atone, nor be 
 included in the general condemnation of Adam's progeny. u In 
 Adam all die,* and for many lives thus forfeited a single life, 
 itself a forfeit, had been no ransom, not only the progeny but the 
 progenitor, every one sprung from the loins of Adam, is a debtor 
 to divine justice, and incapable of becoming a mediator for his 
 brethren. " In many things," we offend all; " if we say we 
 have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 
 And if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus 
 Christ the righteous, and he is a propitiation for our sins." The 
 condemnation and the iniquity of Adam's progeny were univer- 
 sal. To reverse the universal sentence, and to purge the uni- 
 versal corruption, a redeemer was to be found pure, of every stain 
 of inbred and contracted guilt. And since every person pro- 
 duced in the natural way could not but be of the contaminated 
 race; the purity requisite to the efficacy of the Redeemer's atone- 
 ment, made it necessary that the manner of his conception should 
 be supernatural : the miraculous conception once admitted, 
 naturally brings after it the great doctrines of the atonement and 
 tne incarnation. The miraculous conception of our Lord im- 
 plies some higher purpose of his coming than the mere business 
 of a teacher. Such business might have been performed by a 
 
 m 4 mere 
 
168 
 
 mere man, enlightened with the prophetic spirit. Had teach- 
 ing therefore been the sole purpose of our Saviour's coming, a 
 mere man might have done the whole business, and the super- 
 natural conception had been an unnecessary miracle. He there- 
 fore who came in this miraculous way, came upon some higher 
 business, to which a mere man wa9 unequal. He came to be 
 made a sin offering for us, " that we might be made the righte- 
 ousness of God in him." 
 
 So close therefore is the connection of this 
 extraordinary fact with the cardinal doctrines of 
 the gospel, that it may be justly deemed a ne- 
 cessary branch of the scheme of redemption. 
 
 Although it is greatly to be deplored, that a 
 large proportion of the world continues depriv- 
 ed of the benefit of the christian dispensation, 
 there are few people congregated together into 
 one society, who are destitute of religion — of 
 a belief, that there exists some being superior 
 to themselves, and who consequently becomes 
 the object of their adoration and worship : the 
 very act of humiliation which they offer consti- 
 tutes them religious beings ; whether the object of 
 their adoration be symbolized by the sun, or by 
 
 the 
 
169 
 
 the moon, by a stock or a stone. It is by the par- 
 ticular doctrines which particular religions en- 
 force, that men are directed to particular 
 modes of worship, and from whence the moral 
 conduct of the individual takes his bend. 
 
 It is the especial object of the christian dis- 
 pensation to teach man to have a knowledge of 
 himself, in order that he may know what he real- 
 ly is : that although he possesses within himself 
 a soul, immortal and divine, that this divine na- 
 ture is nevertheless full of corrupt affections from 
 the depravity of the animal constitution, by 
 which it is denied ; that he is less disposed to ac- 
 quire the perfection of the one, than to indulge 
 the impulse of the other; that he is by nature 
 born in sin, and the child of wrath ; that instead 
 of resisting the allurements of passion and of 
 vice, he is prone to yield to their influence; in- 
 stead of resisting like the oak of the forest to 
 the hurricane force by which he is assailed, he 
 bends to temptation like the willow to the air; 
 and that he is incapable of becoming accept- 
 able to the Almighty by his own works. 
 
 Notwithstanding 
 
170 
 
 Notwithstanding the fallen condition of man, 
 he is not left altogether destitute of attaining the 
 end for which he is designed : if he employs the 
 means, they are always within his reach ; in order 
 however that regeneration from sin should be 
 obtained, it is absolutely necessary that he 
 should give up the ".old man," " be born again" 
 " live in newness of life" and in the simplicity 
 of a child follow the means of salvation which 
 are proclaimed in the gospel. 
 
 By constant watchfulness and humility, by 
 abstraction from passion and from sense, by self- 
 examination and repentance, by imploring be- 
 fore the throne of grace, aid of the Holy Spirit, 
 man attains that peace of mind which surpasseth 
 all understanding; that assimilation of soul with 
 the divine nature, which enables him to com- 
 mune with his God, and have his redemption from 
 sin secured through the efficacy of his Saviour's 
 atonement. 
 
 It is the efficacy of his faith in this atonement 
 which enables him to triumph over indigence and 
 
 oppression 
 
 / 
 
171 
 
 oppression, and rise in full vigour when appetite is 
 no more; to smooth the brow of care and dispel the 
 gloom of despondency, sweeten the bitterness of 
 grief, and lull agony to rest. Religion ought there- 
 fore to constitute the base of every national 
 establishment, and be the rock which the 
 whole nation as one man ought to grasp. It 
 ought to form the main spring of his actions, 
 the beginning, the middle, and the end of his 
 pursuits; and it is humbly hoped that although 
 the glad tidings of salvation have been confined 
 to particular people, the efficiency of the at- 
 tonement will extend to all nations and kindreds 
 of the world. 
 
 It is greatly to be deplored that in a christian 
 country like this, the same errors frequently 
 are found to exist in the principles and ends of 
 the christian religion, as exist in different 
 branches of philosophy ; that instead of making 
 religion the basis of morality, morality is made 
 the sum total of all religion. This appears to 
 Jiave been the error of Mr. Pope, who although 
 
 a good 
 
172 
 
 a good poet was a bad divine; he contended that 
 morality was the base and sum of all religion. 
 
 " For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, 
 " He can't be wrong whose life is in the right." 
 
 So far from this position being true it is totally 
 false, and ought to be reversed; the poetry 
 must be made bad to have the divinity made 
 good : — 
 
 u For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, 
 " He can't be right whose faith is in the wrong."* 
 
 The truth of this position will evidently appear, 
 if religion and morality are properly denned. 
 Religion in the practical part is a studious con- 
 formity of our actions, our wills, and our appe- 
 tites, to the revealed will of God, in pure regard 
 to the divine authority, and to the relation in 
 which we stand to God, as discovered to us by 
 revelation. On the contrary, morality is a con^ 
 formation of our actions to the relation in which 
 we stand to each other in civil society. So that 
 although religion includes within its operation 
 * See the Biahop of St. David's Charge to his Diocese. 
 
 every 
 
173 
 
 every branch of morality, morality falls very 
 short of attaining the duties of religion ; it nei- 
 ther reaches the secrets meditation of the mind, 
 nor the silent desires of the heart ; it neither 
 imposes restraint upon the sensuality of the 
 imagination, nor the private prurience of the ap- 
 petite. Morality does not say, Thou shalt not 
 covet, thou shalt love thine enemies, thou shalt 
 bless them that curse thee, do good to them that 
 persecute; neither does it enjoin the forgiveness 
 of injuries, or the giving of alms to the poor. 
 The highest principle in morals is a just regard 
 only to the rights of each other in civil society. 
 The first principle in religion, on the contrary 
 is the love of God ; that is to say, in regard to the 
 relation which we bear to him, as is made known 
 to us by revelation. A religious man, strictly 
 so called, does good by design and evil by chance; 
 although his benevolence may be bestowed on 
 unworthy objects, the goodness of his motive 
 absolves him from any error they may cause. 
 On the contrary, the mere moral man, having 
 no higher motives than mere personal gratifica- 
 tion, the moral works he perforins are conse- 
 quently 
 
174 
 
 quently irreligious, not contrary to religion, but 
 without it : he therefore does good by chance, 
 and if he commits evil, the selfishness of his mo- 
 tive precludes all charitable excuse, because he 
 does it by design. It is therefore through faith 
 in revelation, and which, in its beginning, is 
 
 unquestionably a distinct gift of God, that we 
 
 \ 
 become religiously moral, have the fear of God 
 
 constantly before our eyes, and conform our 
 actions to the precepts of revelation. Faith 
 constitutes the means, morality is the end. To 
 suppose practice separable from faith, is to say 
 that the end is attainable without the means; 
 or finally, to affirm that faith can exist without 
 practice, is to suppose that a producing cause can 
 exist without producing an effect. It is by the ef- 
 ficacy of this faith that the distinction between 
 the philosopher and the idiot is abolished, and 
 by which " all that believe are saved," corrup- 
 tion is buried in incorruption, mortality in immor- 
 tality, and the soul finds eternal rest after the 
 earthly tabernacle in which it is contained is 
 dissolved.* 
 
 CHAP. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ON THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LIFE, 
 
 AFTER having briefly but imperfectly de- 
 tailed the ends for which it appears the different 
 classes of animated beings were created, the 
 subject would naturally lead me to describe the 
 means through the agency of which those ends 
 are accomplished. It is greatly to be deplored, 
 that in the very onset of the enquiry physiolo- 
 gists are at variance ; although all must admit 
 the necessity of life, of that poiver by whose 
 energy different species of matter are assimilated 
 
 to 
 
176 
 
 to one kind, a living system organized and form- 
 ed y and the various parts of which it is composed 
 protected and preserved from decomposition and 
 decay, none agree in opinion with respect to 
 its nature; the generality of physiologists either 
 profess their total ignorance of the subject, 
 or else ascribe it to matter which is either 
 dead or common. To the late Mr. John Hun- 
 ter the greatest merit is due for the advances 
 which he made to tear away the veil of igno- 
 rance and of error, in which even in his time 
 physiology was involved ; his discerning mind 
 perceived the distinction which exists between 
 chemical and vital action, as well as between 
 vitality and organization ; he considered that 
 the organization was an effect of which life was 
 the cause — that life was superadded to matter 
 as magnetism is to iron. The dawn of light, 
 however, which began to illuminate physiology, 
 whilst Mr. Hunter was alive to give autho- 
 rity to his opinions, became immediately obscur- 
 ed after his death ; instead of succeeding to estab- 
 lish the paramount predominant power of life, as 
 the cause from which all the phenomena of 
 
 living 
 
177 
 
 living action proceed, they are at this time for 
 the most part referred to the agency of chemical 
 and mechanical means, and the science of phy- 
 sicfis erroneously employed to explain that of 
 physiology. 
 
 By many it is supposed that the principle of 
 life resides in oxygen gas, and which has con- 
 sequently been called vital air. Oxygen 'gas 
 is formed by and obtained from the oxydes 
 of metals, and of semi-metals, more especial- 
 ly of minium and manganeeze, and is con- 
 stantly excreted as deleterious and foreign from 
 the vegetable kingdom in general. It is this 
 particular air, this oxygenous matter, which ve- 
 getables in the day time are perpetually dis- 
 charging from the whole external surface of their 
 foliage as urinous and dead, and which these 
 pure defecated philosophers conceive consti- 
 tutes the principle of life in which all power 
 essentially resides, the immediate and proxi- 
 mate cause of irritability in man ! !! 
 
 n By 
 
178 
 
 By another class the legitimate offspring of 
 an unnatural parent, life is supposed to be a forced 
 state, not an original principle; not an effect 
 simply, but the effect of an effect. It is stated 
 that certain substances called stimuli, — as bran- 
 dy, water, food, &c. &c. act upon a certain some- 
 thing, which according to the gypsey jargon of 
 this school has been called excitability: that 
 these exciting powers by acting on this excita- 
 bility, produce an effect which is called excite- 
 ment, and that excitement constitutes life, and is 
 the proximate cause of it,— the source of life in- 
 deed, at its termination, — it makes life to begin 
 out of the body, and to end in it, instead of be- 
 ginning in it and ending out of it. In this hy- 
 pothesis life is in fact forced into existence by 
 the united action of the stimuli and the excitabili- 
 ty together, a tertiumquid is formed, in the same 
 manner as the motion of a spinning top by the 
 action of a whip upon it. Great as these errors 
 may be considered, they are in my opinion as a 
 feather in the balance, when compared to the 
 prevailing practice of referring to the agency of 
 •.hnnical means the various phenomena which 
 
 are 
 
1?9 
 
 are carried on in the living system ; if the uniform 
 rnity of effect which ensues from chemical com* 
 binationis contrasted with the diversity of quality 
 which different kinds of food undergo by the di- 
 gestive power of different animals ; vve must ne- 
 cessarily be Jed to conclude that the process of 
 digestion does not proceed from a chemical 
 cause. If it arose from a chemical cause, the 
 change which the food sustained, by the mutual 
 action between the parts would be regular and 
 uniform, and the result, instead of being always 
 the same, would be generally different. It would 
 constantly vary in its properties according to 
 the specific nature of the substances out of which 
 it was made. The change itself would be con- 
 stant and definite, and not liable to the remission 
 and variation which we witness during the 
 process of digestion. 
 
 It is therefore legitimate to conclude that the 
 process of digestion, by means of which differ- 
 ent kinds of food are assimilated to one and the 
 same species, is not a chemical but a living act, 
 and that the efficient cause of this commutation 
 
 N 2 does 
 
180 
 
 does not arise from any active or chemical pro- 
 perty which in the food inheres; but that it pro- 
 ceeds from the power of the organ alone in which 
 it is received, and by whose energy the new 
 arrangements of the parts are formed. 
 
 This assimilating power pervades the whole 
 range of animated existence. It is in es- 
 sence the same in animals as it is in vege- 
 tables, however diversified the construction of 
 the organs may be by which the effect is pro- 
 duced : all these organs are designed to reduce 
 different substances to one kind, in order that 
 this one substance may be in harmony with the 
 system at large, and fitted to be acted upon by 
 the particular power of the different organs into 
 various forms. When the assimilating organs 
 therefore perform their functions with force and 
 with efficacy; they possess the power of chang- 
 ing and of destroying the sensible and chemical 
 qualities of the substance they receive; they not 
 only possess the power to act, but to resist ac- 
 tion; to change things external to themselves 
 
 without 
 
131 
 
 withoutbeing changed by external things ; to act 
 upon them instead of being converted by them. 
 
 The matter therefore which every living sys- 
 tem receives for its nourishment and support, 
 can only arise out of its aptitude, and its aptitude 
 can only proceed from its imbecillity and weak- 
 ness, from its state of disorganization and depri- 
 vation total and complete. It is whilst it subsists 
 in this weak and destitute condition, with relation 
 to the power of a living system, that I say mat- 
 ter is a mere tabula rasa — in all its parts a 
 chaos, of power and intelligence altogether 
 void, as imbecil and inert as the shoe without 
 the foot, or as the musical instrument without 
 the art or power of the musician: it bears the 
 same relation of tvcakness to the poiver of the 
 organs, as the uncoloured paper on which I am 
 now writing does to the power of my hand, or as 
 the block does to the statue. If the block were 
 already chiselled into a statue, the prior existence 
 of that statue would render the marble whilst in 
 that figured condition unfit for the art of the sta- 
 tuary, but being a plain surface alone, it becomes 
 
 n 3 a fit 
 
182 
 
 a fit recipient for the figures which the artist 
 intends to engrave. 
 
 That this is the relation which actually sub- 
 sists of power and of weakness, between the re- 
 ceiver and the thing received, between the or- 
 gans and the food ; is proved by examining the 
 converse of the proposition. If the food which 
 every living system receives for its nourishment , 
 and support, acted by virtue of its chemical or 
 its sensible qualities, whether of aggregation or 
 configuration; whether of colour or flavor ; these 
 qualities would constantly resist the powers of 
 the organs, and would oppose the change which 
 the matter by them was designed to undergo. 
 Instead of vegetable and animal matter being 
 converted into chyle; fermentation and putre* 
 faction would invariably take place; if solid sub- 
 stances had been taken in for food, those sub* 
 stances would obey the order of their affinities 
 in the system itself as they are prone to do out 
 of it; a chemical union between the parts would 
 take place, and compound salts be formed; and 
 finally, if they retained any active or corrosive 
 
 power 
 
183 
 
 power, they would enter into an union with the 
 organ itself, a caustic effect would be produced, 
 and a consequent decomposition of it would en- 
 sue; or if the matter received acted by virtue of 
 its configuration, it would irritate and destroy, 
 iaesion and destruction be the consequence. If 
 it possessed any permanent power of solidity or 
 fluidity; the one could not by the organ be ren- 
 dered fluid, more than the other rendered gela- 
 tinous or solid, and in neither case could it ul- 
 timately be fashioned or formed into the differ- 
 ent and varied parts for which it was especially 
 designed. 
 
 The same reasoning equally applies to its 
 attributes of colour and of flavour also: if any 
 particular colour in the food permenantly inhe- 
 red, that colour would be constantly retailed; by 
 being retained it would be always imparted to 
 the blood, and the complexion instead of being 
 different in the individual of every species would 
 be invariably the same. This is proved when 
 substances are introduced for food, whose sen 
 sible properties cannot be altogether obliterat 
 n 4 ed, 
 
184 
 
 eel. Hence it is that madder imparts a red, tuv«- 
 meric a yellow colour, to the system at large. 
 No proof indeed is more strong of the disor- 
 ganization total and complete, which the most 
 minute particles of matter in general undergo 
 by the process of digestion, than the loss of 
 flavour and of colour which they suffer ; the most 
 odorous and sapid are rendered inodorous and 
 tasteless, the most coloured (as far as it is pos- 
 sible) colourless; retaining no quality what- 
 ever, bulk alone excepted. 
 
 The relation which subsists between the alimen- 
 tary matter from without and the digestive organs 
 within, is precisely the same in kind as that 
 which subsists between the blood and the vari- 
 ous parts to which it is conveyed; whilst the 
 
 digestive organs unify and assimilate different 
 species of matter to one and the same kind, and 
 which subsists in the form of blood, the dif- 
 ferent secretory organs on the contrary have the 
 power to convert this blood into fluids and 
 solids, in their nature totally different, as we 
 behold in the various secreted fluids that are 
 
 produced 
 
185 
 
 produced from the blood of the same animal and 
 the medulla of the same plants. Blood bears 
 the same relation to the power which the organs 
 severally possess, as brick and mortar do to the 
 architect or to the artist by whom a building* is 
 erected. It has no more the power to convert 
 itself into organization or form than brick and 
 mortar have of themselves the power to erect a * 
 building. If it possessed any power of action 
 within itself, by virtue of the sensible properties 
 it contains, it would resist the action of the 
 organs to which it was applied, it would act 
 upon them instead of being changed and con- 
 verted by them : if it had the power of convert- 
 ing itself by itself either into different organs or 
 into different fluids, the previous existence of 
 those organs would be unnecessary, since the 
 process of conversion and of secretion would 
 take place without their influence. We might 
 as well suppose that a building can be erected 
 without hands and designed without a designer; 
 it in fact is to suppose an effect to be produced 
 without a producing cause; or the supposition 
 
 equally 
 
186 
 
 equally absurd and false, that the effect and the 
 cause are inherent in one and the same subject. 
 
 By virtue of its passivity the capacity of blood 
 arises not only of being moved but of being 
 changed and organized; it has the capacity of 
 being moved without having any power of mov- 
 ing itself, following without resisting the im- 
 pulse it receives from the vessels in which it is 
 contained. 
 
 It has the capacity of being changed by the 
 power of the part in which it is deposited ; yield- 
 ing without resisting, as the softened and adapt- 
 ed wax to the force of the impression engraved 
 on a seal. 
 
 It bears the same relation to the organs as air 
 does to sound ; if the air expired from the lungs 
 inherently possessed any particular sound, that 
 particular sound would constantly manifest it- 
 self; but air being destitute of all sound, retains 
 the capacity alone of being expanded and com- 
 pressed ; it thereby becomes fitted to be acted 
 
 upon 
 
187 
 
 upon by the organs of speech, and through 
 their power it is modulated and harmonized, 
 and language ultimately produced. 
 
 It is with a view of preserving this aptitude 
 in the blood of animals, and to prevent the sen* 
 sible qualities which the coarser parts contain, 
 from being employed, or exerting any influ- 
 ence upon the organs, that we behold the design 
 and end for the exhalent termination of arteries 
 into capillary tubes, by means of which a me- 
 chanical cause exists to prevent a mechanical 
 effect. If it were not for this mode of construc- 
 tion; if the terminated diameter of the exhalent 
 arteries were large instead of small, not only the 
 more tenuous, but the more globular parts of 
 the blood would be permitted to flow through ; 
 those parts of the whole would flow through 
 which possess quantity with colour and figure ; 
 quality without aptitude, that would act upon the 
 organs instead of retaining the fitness alone to be 
 acted upon by them. A gradual diminution in the 
 size of the secretory vessels exists, in order that 
 the fluid which they exhale may answer in the 
 
 best 
 
188 
 
 best possible manner the end for which it is de- 
 signed; this fluid is therefore tasteless and in- 
 odorous, colourless and tenuous. 
 
 So little is known at this time of the nature 
 of blood, that with few exceptions, the generali- 
 ty of physiologists absolutely deny to it the at- 
 tributes of vitality, — of vitality to that important 
 matter from which every part of the living sys- 
 tem is formed, which supplies the wants, and 
 which restores the w r aste that different parts 
 suffer ; and Mr. J. Bell, who must be consider- 
 ed high authority, calls the vitality of the blood 
 " the most monstrous of all absurdities." The 
 vitality of the blood is an opinion almost as 
 ancient as the Mosaic account of the creation. 
 The sacred writings tell us, that " the life is in 
 the blood," that is to say that the life of the ani- 
 mal or of the vegetable is in the blood, in com- 
 mon with the other parts of the body; not sepa- 
 rate and distinct from it, but co-existing and 
 connate with it. That the blood is alive was 
 so considered by Servetus, two hundred and 
 fifty years ago, (it made one of the charges pre- 
 ferred 
 
189 
 
 ferred against him before he was brought to the 
 stake), as well as by our illustrious countrymen 
 Hervey and Hunter. It is greatly to be deplor- 
 ed, for the cause of science, that Mr. Hunter's 
 active and comprehensive mind should have 
 been destitute of those collateral branches of 
 knowledge which are intimately connected with 
 the science of physiology : he saw truth, but 
 he saw it at an unapproachable distance, he 
 saw it in a fog, he saw it through a glass dark- 
 ly. Although Mr. Hunter revived the explod- 
 ed doctrine of the vitality of the blood, he ne- 
 vertheless supposed that this vitality was as it 
 were separated from the other parts of the sys- 
 tem ; that the blood had a life, sui generis, or as 
 he termed it, that the blood was an animal with- 
 in an animal ; imperium in imperio ; insomuch 
 /i^fiHt possessed a sort of animation or power 
 of action within itself similar to muscular con- 
 traction ; that it was by virtue of this power 
 that bones were formed and renewed, and the 
 various processes of secretion and of growth 
 carried on ; that in fact all the phenomena which 
 
 are 
 
W6 
 
 are produced by it proceeded from powers inhe- 
 rent in it, 
 
 These false assumptions grubed up the road 
 which he himself had paved of discovering the 
 relation which the blood bears to the organs, 
 and at once blasted the fair prospect which he 
 had opened to our view, of seeing the nature 
 and design of secretion; instead of which the 
 process of secretion, so important and exten- 
 sive in the living system, is acknowledged by 
 all to be involved in utter darkness. 
 
 Our ignorance of secretion appears to me itl 
 a great measure to arise from mistaking the re- 
 lation which the blood bears to the organs by 
 the energy of which it is acted upon and chang- 
 ed; instead of considering blood as the passive 
 recipient*, as the subject matter to be acted up- 
 on, not only by the vessel in which it is con- 
 tained, but by the organ in which it is deposit- 
 ed ; it is to the stimulus of the blood, more than 
 to its aptitude to be acted upon by the organs to 
 which the changes which it undergoes are to be 
 
 referred* 
 
191 
 
 referred. If blood possessed any power of action 
 within itself, it would resist the action of the 
 organs to which it was applied ; it would act up- 
 on them, instead of being* changed and converted 
 2^ them ; it is moved without the power of moving 
 itself; it is propelled without resisting, and fol- 
 lows the impulse it receives from the power of 
 the vessels in which it is contained, not accord- 
 ing to the principles by which fluids are moved 
 in hydraulic machines, but by powers altogether 
 different from them. 
 
 The relation which exists between the blood 
 and the vessel is precisely the same in kind as 
 subsists between the glands and the blood; 
 whilst the power of the one is similar to the 
 figures engraved in a seal, the other resembles 
 the softened and adapted wax which is to re- 
 ceive the impression. It is by the energy of the 
 former and aptitude in the latter, that the vari- 
 ous processes of secretion and nutrition are car- 
 ried on. Instead of supposing that the changes 
 which are produced on the blood arise from the 
 agency of the glands, or of the part in which it 
 
 is 
 
192 
 
 is deposited, the change for the most part is re- 
 ferred to the power of the blood upon the gland, 
 the act is stated to he a chemical rather than 
 a livin gone, and the aggregating principles of 
 physiology have been abandoned to the decom- 
 posing powers of chemistry : every solid and 
 every fluid have in consequence been analysed 
 with the utmost accurac3 r , and from bodies 
 whose elements were found to be the same, ef- 
 fects which are altogether different are attempt- 
 ed to be explained. I shall therefore proceed 
 to take a cursory review of these different bodies 
 in order to point out how little is known about 
 them at this time. 
 
 With respect to saliva, instead of considering 
 it as an auxiliary to the teeth in acting upon 
 the food; it is for the most part viewed as a 
 mere mucous fluid destined to lubricate the 
 surface of the mouth. The saliva however to 
 me appears to have an higher office to fulfil ; 
 whilst the food is broken down with respect to 
 mass by the mechanical action of the teeth, the 
 saliva is destined to assist them in comminut- 
 ing 
 
193 . 
 
 ing those parts into smaller particles, it tends 
 to eliminate the specific and chemical qualities 
 which the food contains, it bereaves acids of 
 their acidity, alcalis of their acrimony, and to 
 a certain and limited extent blunts the asperity 
 of both, rendering the different articles of food 
 bland and mild, as a preparatory step to the 
 action in the stomach which the food is to un- 
 dergo. 
 
 The various facts which were produced by 
 Mr. Hunter, and which have been multiplied 
 without end by others, prove in a manner the 
 most decisive that the change which the food 
 undergoes in the stomach from a dead to a living 
 state, is a living not a chemical act ; although 
 all agree that the gastric juice is the agent by 
 the energy of which the process is accomplish- 
 ed; with the exception of a few, the effect 
 is referred to a chemical, not to a living cause: 
 with as much rationality might we refer to death 
 the cause of life; to organic action, the source 
 of organization ; or assert that the fceculent matter 
 in the rectum is the seat of chylfication. It is 
 o scarcely 
 
194 
 
 scarcely necessary for me to expatiate on the 
 folly of these opinions, they go to revive the ex- 
 ploded doctrine of M c Bride, that digestion is 
 a process of fermentation and putrifaction, and 
 that the same means are employed in the ani- 
 mated system to bring dead matter into a living 
 state, as those by which living matter is decom- 
 posed and reduced to one dead and putrid. 
 The gastric juice, like the other fluids, has been 
 analysed also, but insead of manifesting any 
 chemical properties to which its power can be 
 referred, it has been found to be destitute of 
 them; it is neither acid nor alcalescent, but per- 
 fectly insipid and inoffensive. Is it, I would 
 ask, reasonable to assert that a fluid such as 
 this, which appears to be destitute of all che- 
 mical quality whatever, nevertheless acts by che- 
 mical power? 
 
 The same errors exist respecting the agency 
 of the means by which a separation of the chy- 
 lous from the feculent parts of the chyme is ef- 
 fected, after it has passed from the stomach in- 
 to the intestinal canal ; although the first por- 
 tion of the canal is evidently constructed with a 
 
 view 
 
195 
 
 view to retard the passage of the chyme through 
 it, it is generally believed that the bile which 
 the liver secrets is merely intended to accelerate 
 its expulsion. It is far otherwise, the internal 
 surface of the canal is increased to a very consider- 
 able extent by means of a number of ridges or 
 folds, which at first are nearly concentric to 
 each other but which gradually acquire a diago- 
 nal direction ; since then the alimentary canal is 
 constructed with a view to retard the motion 
 of the food through the first part of its course ; 
 it is most unreasonable to suppose that the real 
 and direct intention of the hepatic system is to 
 hasten its expulsion; if this were the case, in- 
 stead of harmony, there would be perpetual 
 warfare between both : the retarding construc- 
 tion of the intestines would always tend to 
 prevent, what the bile was designed to accelerate, 
 and the ductus communis, in such a case, instead 
 of having its orificein the duodenum ought to have 
 it in the rectum; those who can reconcile this war- 
 fare of parts that are dependant upon each other, 
 have very inadequate notions of the symmetry 
 that pervades throughout the whole of the system 
 
 o 2 and 
 
196 
 
 and the harmony that exists between the parts 
 of which it is composed. So far from suppos- 
 ing that the primary use of bile is intended to 
 defeat the end for which the intestinal (or the 
 chylous canal as it ought more properly to be 
 called), is so peculiarly constructed; I think it 
 far more reasonable to conclude that it is in- 
 tended to harmonize with it, and that the bile 
 instead of acting by its resin and its alcali as 
 an active purgative, is intended in the first in- 
 stance to separate the chylous from the fcecu- 
 lent parts of the chyme, producing a precipita- 
 tion of the one, and afterwards assisting the ex- 
 pulsion of the other, conformably to observations 
 which have been made by experiments. 
 
 With respect to the pancreas or sweetbread, 
 although it secretes a fluid of a quality bland 
 and mild, somewhat similar in its properties to 
 saliva, and which probably co-operates in ac- 
 complishing the same purpose as the bile from 
 the liver; the specific determinate use to which 
 this fluid subserves, continues to the best ex- 
 perimentalist a perfect mystery. 
 
 The 
 
197 
 
 The same uncertainty prevails respecting the 
 use of the spleen $ the well, known fact that it 
 has been altogether absent in animals which in 
 general have one, and that it has been extirpat- 
 ed without producing any violent shock to the 
 constitution, led to the supposition that it was 
 of little or no use. Dr. Stukely, seventy years 
 ago, in his Gulstonian Lecture, traced the con- 
 nection which subsists between the spleen and 
 the stomach, as well as between the other abdo- 
 minal viscera, and from a very scientific mode 
 of investigation was led to conclude that the 
 spleen was designed to assist the stomach in the 
 process of digestion; these opinions of Dr. 
 Stukley, have since received some confirmation 
 by experiments made by Dr. Haighton, the re- 
 spectable lecturer on physiology at Guy's Hos- 
 pital ; the doctor was led to conclude that when 
 the stomach was full, the pressure which the 
 spleen is made in consequence to undergo, not 
 only prevents the passage of the blood through 
 that organ, but that it actually does produce 
 an increased accumulation in the vessels with 
 which the stomach and the pancreas are suppli- 
 o 3 ed 
 
 
198 
 
 ed. Greatly as I respect Dr. Haighton's talents 
 and industry, there are many "objections to his 
 experiments upon this subject, and the fact that 
 in some animals the situation of the stomach 
 and the spleen are so remote that they cannot 
 come in contact, may probably appear an in- 
 superable objection to his hypothesis. Mr. 
 Home, who holds the first rank in his profes 
 sion, and who must be considered very high 
 authority also, from different experiments which 
 he made on dogs, is of opinion that the food 
 from the stomach undergoes some change in 
 the spleen, not through the medium of the ab- 
 sorbent vessels, but by some unknown mode of 
 communication : after tying the pyloric extre- 
 mity of the stomach, and injecting into that or- 
 gan infusions of madder and of rhubarb, and 
 killing the animal, he found that the cells of the 
 spleen, particularly at the great end of it were 
 very large and distinct ; on macerating a portion 
 of it in ten drachms of water, and testing it by 
 an alcali, he found that it gave out a reddish 
 brown colour in the center and no where else; 
 a similar portion of the liver was treated in the 
 
 same 
 
199 
 
 same manner and an alkali was added to the 
 strained liquor, but no such change in it was 
 produced. I mention these opinions in order 
 to show how little is known upon the subject. 
 
 The same confusion exists with respect to the 
 lacteal (or chilous) vessels ; those vessels which 
 arising with open mouths from the folds of the 
 intestines, absorb the chyle or digested aliment 
 after it has been depurated from its feculent 
 portions, and convey it to the mass of blood, in 
 order that the waste which it undergoes may be 
 restored. The mode by which the absorption 
 is accomplished continues an object of disputa- 
 tion ; instead of supposing that it is performed by 
 a living power in the parts, as much as the suction 
 of a leech or even of an infant at the breast ; by 
 many it is considered an inanimate act, similar 
 to the raising different fluids in narrow tubes, 
 by what is called capillary attraction. Al- 
 though the lacteal (chylous) resemble the lym- 
 phatic vessels in the office of absorption, the 
 substances on which they act are in their na- 
 ture totally different ; whilst the former convey 
 3iU o 4 to 
 
200 
 
 to the blood the nutritious matter which the 
 stomach had assimilated ; the latter on the con- 
 trary are designed to remove and carry away 
 those parts of the system which are worn out, 
 and which exist in a perishing and dying state ; 
 the former maybe compared to cooks which con- 
 stantly afford to the blood a supply, the other 
 to scavengers who take away the dilapidated 
 parts of the system. It is in obedience to the 
 diversity in the end to which each system is 
 subservient, that there exists a diversity of power 
 between them at different periods of life; in in- 
 fancy and youth, whilst the system is in a state 
 of progression and growth the lacteals are large 
 and the lymphatics comparatively small ; at the 
 middle periods of life, when the system has at- 
 tained the acme of perfection, both systems are 
 as it were balanced; in old age, on the con 
 trary, when emaciation and decrease takes 
 place, the balance between them is altogether 
 upset, and both scales are put into one; the 
 lacteals become weaker and smaller, whilst the 
 lymphatics on the contrary increase in magni- 
 tude and strength. Instead of contemplating 
 
 the 
 
201 
 
 the action of these vessels with relation to the 
 separate functions which they are designed to 
 perform, both are generally confounded together, 
 whilst the former carry materials to the blood 
 to supply the waste which it suffers, the latter 
 receives from the system the parts which are 
 wasted, or which have accomplished the purpose 
 for which they were enlarged ; in no organ is this 
 office more striking than in the uterus. Before ges- 
 tation the lymphatics of that organ are remark- 
 ably small and thready, after parturition they im- 
 mediately encrease in size, and have often been 
 seen as large as the quill of a goose; it is 
 through their agency that the different parts of 
 the system that are either superfluous or dis- 
 eased are removed ; diminishing the fabric of the 
 whole by the parts which they absorb, and of* 
 ten destroying the form itself; notwithstanding 
 these avowed purposes for which the lymphatics 
 are designed, the opinion which was first broach- 
 ed by Mr. Hunter, soon after they were discover- 
 ed, that they were the modellers of our frame 
 
 continues 
 
202 
 
 continues to be preserved; instead of modellers 
 they are the scavengers of the system.* 
 
 If I proceed to detail the opinions which are 
 entertained respecting the function of the lungs, 
 they will be found most erroneous and contra- 
 dictory. Instead of considering the lungs, as I 
 conceive they ought to be considered, as much 
 organs of digestion as the stomach itself; the 
 one acting upon and digesting particular kind* 
 of air, as much as the other is known to do 
 particular kinds of food, whilst the latter re- 
 stores the waste which the blood sustains in point 
 of quantity, the former meliorates it in point of 
 quality, and by the united power of both it is 
 preserved in a state fitted to answer the ends for 
 which it is designed ; instead, however of sup- 
 posing that the lungs act upon the air, it is sup- 
 posed it is the air which acts upon the lungs, 
 
 * The pig which had remained under the ruins of the cliff 
 which fell in at Dover, for the period of five months, was re- 
 duced in weight by the. activity of these vessels, for the 
 most part, from eight scores to thirty six pound} that is he had 
 lost in weight 124 pounds. 
 
 and 
 
203 
 
 and like the action of the food upon the stomach, 
 that it is a chemical, not a living act. 
 
 Instead of separating the functions of respira- 
 tion in general, as they ought tobe,into inspiration 
 by which air is received into the lungs — into 
 digestion, by which particular portions of it are 
 separated from the rest, and received into the 
 blood for its melioration and support, and final- 
 ly into expiration, by which the residuary and 
 fceculent parts are expelied out of the system : 
 the process of respiration, on the contrary, is 
 confined to inspiration and expiration only. I 
 shall not dwell upon the multitude of cruel ex- 
 periments which have been made on cats and 
 dogs, in order to ascertain the quality of the 
 different materials which are received and ex- 
 pelled : in spight of all the means which have 
 been employed these chemical physiologists 
 continue at variance, and have not yet settled 
 whether oxygen air or caloric is absorbed, and 
 from the late experiments made without the aid 
 of torture, by two eminent chemists, Messrs. 
 Allen and Pepys, upon this subject, they would 
 
 seem 
 
204 
 
 seem to disprove all the experiments that have 
 been made before; they go to show that al- 
 though much carbonic air is expired, little or 
 nothing is taken in ; however high the authority 
 certainly is, from whence this opinion has come. 
 I nevertheless consider the actual change of 
 colour and of consistence, from black and thick 
 to red and liquid, which the blood undergoes 
 as it passes from the pulmonary artery through 
 the lungs to the pulmonary veins, is far more 
 decisive than any chemical experiments per- 
 formed on the air out of the body can disprove; 
 that independently of what is expelled a con- 
 siderable quantity of matter is neverthless re- 
 ceived, the quality of which it is not worth a 
 rush to ascertain ; the experiments made by 
 Mr. Hunter, Dr. Goodwin, &c. &c. are decisive 
 on this point. 
 
 Equally at variance are physiologists with 
 respect to the manner in which the matter act- 
 ed upon by the lungs is conveyed into the blood : 
 instead of deriving benefit from the analogy which 
 different parts of the system afford, when we 
 
 see 
 
205 
 
 see the matter which is received, is conveyed by 
 absorption from vessels which have the power 
 of absorbing ; instead of supposing that the 
 parts of the air which have been separated frorn 
 the whole, are absorbed by the extremity of the 
 pulmonary veins, as the nutritious matter which 
 the placenta furnishes for the support of the 
 foetus is unquestionably absorbed by the extre- 
 mities of the umbilical veins, or as the chyle by 
 the chylous (lacteal) vessels, it is generally 
 supposed that the air forces its way into the 
 blood by the most unnatural means, not through 
 the medium of open orifices which are greedy to 
 receive it, but through the solid and impeni- 
 trable sides of the vessels themselves. A con- 
 struction of vessels which would permit the 
 access of air through would evidently admit the 
 egress of it also ; the assertion has been disprov- 
 ed by experiments which were made to support 
 it ; the jugular veins of rabbits have been ex- 
 posed and oxygen air by means of a blow pipe, 
 has been directed upon it, without producing 
 any sensible alteration on the blood that flowed 
 through it; on removing, however, the external 
 
 coat 
 
206 
 
 coat of the vessel it was supposed that the co- 
 lour of the blood then underwent some change, 
 and became more florid than before : a false fact 
 such as this, will not 1 trust give any weight to 
 such an opinion. 
 
 Although chemical physiologists have been 
 undecided with respect to the quality of the 
 matter which has been received from the lungs 
 into the blood, they have been pretty unani- 
 mous in opinion, that it was the source and the 
 cause of animal heat. If such an hypothesis 
 were true it must as a consequence follow that the 
 temperature of the blood must be higher at the 
 the point near which it is received than in the 
 most remote parts from it; and that the blood 
 on the left side of the heart ought, in that case, 
 to be hotter than the blood on the right side of 
 it : the fact however is precisely the reverse, 
 the experiments made by Mr. A. Cooper (and 
 there is no man more able or more to be de- 
 pended upon), shew in a manner the most de- 
 cisive that the blood on the right side of the 
 heart, at the greatest possible distance from 
 
 whence 
 
207 
 
 whence the matter of heat is supposed to be re- 
 ceived, was from two to three degrees hotter than 
 the blood on the left side, the nearest point to 
 the supposed source of heat; if the hypothesis 
 therefore is admitted to be true we must also 
 admit the absurdity, that a body is heated to a 
 greater degree when situated at a great distance 
 from a fire than when it is placed close to it. 
 
 How the gaseous matter received from the 
 lungs acts upon the blood, except by changing 
 its colour and consistency, is as unknown at 
 present as the operation of medicine upon the 
 stomach. The causa operandi of medicine is 
 altogether unknown, and the modus operandi is 
 only acquired by experience obtained through 
 the medium of observation and of accident; the 
 best physician that exists can no more tell the 
 cause why tartarized antimony has an emetic, or 
 the sulphate of magnesia a cathartic effect, than 
 the most ignorant nurse living ; much less (if 
 total ignorance would admit of degrees), how 
 specific* remedies produce specific effects in 
 curing particular complaints : let it not there- 
 fore 
 
208 
 
 fore be arrogantly asserted that there is any 
 science in pathology, or in the practice of medi- 
 cine, it is absolute quackery.* 
 
 Having run over the deplorable state of igno- 
 rance which exists respecting the functions of 
 those organs that are subservient to the pre- 
 servation and support of the system, I shall now 
 proceed to show that the same state of error and 
 of ignorance exists respecting the nature of the 
 actions of those organs, through the energy of 
 
 * I wish however to be clearly understood ; I speak of the 
 practice of medicine as a science, not as an art. The observa- 
 tions and experience of intelligent and sensible men have been 
 the means of employing the different remedies which relieve and 
 cure different complaints, and the man who has the greatest ex- 
 perience, and who has the best capacity to make observation on 
 the progress of the different symptoms of the same disease, and 
 to compare different diseases with each other is unquestionably 
 the. man who is most likely to constitute the best physician. 
 With respect to surgery there is perhaps no branch of art that 
 has undergone within the last thirty years greater improvements 
 not only with respect to the instruments employed, but in the 
 mode of using them also; and the sufferings of mankind have in 
 consequence been greatly mitigated ; these observations may in 
 some degree apply to the art of midwifery also. 
 
 which 
 
209 
 
 Which the ends are obtained for which animat- 
 ed beings were created; I mean the organs of 
 motion and of fecundation, of ratiocination and 
 of sensation* 
 
 With respect to the cause of motion although 
 the subject has occupied the attention of many 
 ingenious and enquiring men at different times, 
 we possess no other knowledge of this cause 
 than that the muscles are the agents by which 
 motion is produced ; but of the cause why we 
 continue in the most profound ignorance. 
 
 Having investigated the subject of fecunda- 
 tion, the result of which I have detailed at large 
 in my Physiology, as well as in two papers pub- 
 lished in the MedicalJournal for the year 1799, 
 I shall merely observe in this place, that the ob- 
 ject which I had principally in view, was to shew 
 thatthe ideas which were entertained on it by Dr. 
 Haighton, and which have been published in the 
 Philosophical Transactions, were altogether er- 
 roneous ; that he had discarded and rejected all 
 analogy whatever; and the evidence which is 
 
 p furnished 
 
210 
 
 furnished to us by vegetables, by fish, and 
 by the amphibia, as well as other classes of 
 animals; that instead of taking* the actual 
 existence of a foetus, as constituting the only 
 infallible test of animal impregnation; he had 
 assumed the formation of a corpus luteum in 
 the ovarium. I proved that the very facts which 
 he had advanced were decisive in shewing 
 that he had proceeded from false assumptions ; 
 that in all those cases in which he divided the 
 fallopian tube of one side and left the one on the 
 opposite side perfect and undivided, that al- 
 though there were corpora lutea in both ovaria; 
 there were foetuses only in the perfect, but no 
 traces whatever of a foetus in the mutilated side ; 
 that although (Estrumhad producedan evolution 
 of the ova in both ovaria,impregnation was appa- 
 rent only in the perfect one. Notwithstanding these 
 facts which he himself had obtained, he conclud- 
 ed that the existence of corpora lutea was the test 
 of impregnation ; and from this false fact and 
 false assumption, he has proceeded to investi- 
 gate the subject, and to make from them the 
 most erroneous conclusions; he might with as 
 much propriety have supposed that the ova of 
 
 birds 
 
birds, which we see continually dropped from the 
 ovarium without impregnation, are actually im- 
 pregnated ; and that the corpus luteum which 
 is in consequence formed, is the test of it, al- 
 though certain evidence had existed that no 
 union between the pairs had taken place, and 
 where corpora lutea had been formed, but no im- 
 pregnation whatever. 
 
 The ignorance and error which exist respect- 
 ing the functions which I have mentioned, are 
 especially extended to those of sensation and of 
 consciousness ; although the brain is the organ 
 in which consciousness resides, we are totally 
 ignorant of the manner by which its actions are 
 displayed ; how it is that without being muscular 
 in its fabric it is nevertheless the cause of muscular 
 motion; how, though formed of parts which 
 were originally destitute of sense and of reason, 
 it nevertheless constitutes the instrument from 
 which the principles of sense and of reason per- 
 tually flow. Notwithstanding all analogy justifies 
 the opinion that the brain is an organ of secretion, 
 the fact has never been demons traced, and the most 
 perfect ignorance exists at thi s time how this most 
 p 2 important 
 
212 
 
 important organ of the whole system acts, and 
 what is its nature. This state of ignorance has 
 been very candidly confessed by Sir Busic Har- 
 wood, the present learned and respectable pro- 
 fessor of anatomy at the university of Cam- 
 bridge : — 
 
 "When we dissect the brain," sayshe, "and ob- 
 serve the different substances of which it is com- 
 posed, and their different forms ; imagination as- 
 suming the office of reason, would willingly assign 
 a peculiar use to every part, and pronounce one 
 to be the residence, or rather the instrument of 
 memory ; another of abstraction, a third of vo- 
 lition, &c. When a sensation is excited by the 
 action of any substance upon the'body, we im- 
 mediately perceive upon what part of the body 
 the substance acts, where the impression be- 
 gins ; and as the impression is conveyed by the 
 nerves to the brain, it is conceivable that we 
 might be so constituted as to perceive with the 
 same facility in what part of the brain the im- 
 pression ends. This, however, experience con- 
 vinces tis, we are not able to determine. The 
 
 skill 
 
213 
 
 skill of the anatomist has demonstrated every 
 process, explored every cavity, and would if 
 possible have traced every filament of this in- 
 explicable mass, of that wonderful aud anoma- 
 lous organ placed on the doubtful confines of 
 the material and spiritual worlds I nor have the 
 physiologist or metaphysician been less eager to 
 discover or to assign to each part its peculiar 
 office; whatever maybe due to the former for 
 accuracy, and to the latter for ingenuity and 
 zeal, we must lament that little knowledge has 
 resulted from their labours. At this advanced 
 period of science, when almost every subject 
 has been illuminated by the experiments, the 
 deductions, and even by the conjectures of the 
 learned, we are not able to proceed a single 
 step beyond the fathers of medicine, who in the 
 very infancy of our art pronounced this inscru- 
 table mass of organized matter to be the foun- 
 tain and the reservoir, the beginning and the 
 end of the whole nervous system, where every 
 idea originates, and to which every sensation is 
 referred/' 
 
 P a The 
 
214 
 
 The same want of knowledge exists with 
 respect to sensation, — that the nerves are the 
 organs of sense as the muscles are of motion, 
 comprehends all we know of their nature; 
 but of the manner how impressions received are 
 conveyed to the brain, in which the impression 
 ends and consciousness begins ; and how voli- 
 tion and motion are imparted to the different 
 muscles of voluntary motion, — whether these ef- 
 fects are accomplished through the medium of 
 a subtle fluid which the nerves contain, as Sir 
 Isaac Newton and others with great probability 
 of truth have asserted, or according to the opi- 
 nion of others by vibrations excited through 
 nerves of a solid fabric, like thrills on a brass 
 wire, is not only a matter of hypothesis, but is 
 as unknown to the best physiologist, as it is to 
 the rudest barbarian.* 
 
 ■* The horrid cruelties which continue to be practised by the 
 Galvanic fire, and other means, on the sciatic nerves of frogs, 
 rather favour the former hypothesis ; the experiment once made 
 has ascertained all that can be known from it, and the fact 
 might therefore be mentioned, but certainly ought not to be re- 
 peated as it is so often done, in order to produce a sort of stage 
 
 What 
 
215 
 
 What are the individual properties of which the 
 different bodies are composed, which impressed 
 upon the organs of sense excite the different sensa- 
 tions, is a physical not a physiological question, 
 and is more cognizable to the natural philosopher 
 than to the physiologist. 
 
 It is the province of the chemist to analize the 
 materials of which the different kinds of food are 
 composed, to ascertain the parts which consti- 
 tute the difference by which one species of food 
 is in its nature different from the rest; — beef 
 from venison, madeira from claret. What are 
 the constituent materials which flowing from 
 different bodies excite on the olfactory sense, 
 flavours so various and opposite, — to ascertain 
 the quality of bodies through which impulses 
 are propagated, and which excite on the audi- 
 tory nerves the sensations of sound, — or why abed 
 of roses and a bed of thorns, excite the sensa- 
 tions of pleasure and of pain ; — to ascertain the 
 
 effect, and to gratify ignorant curiosity. Little did Lord Bacon 
 suppose that the system 6i induction which he introduced, would 
 have been converted into a system of torture. 
 
 p 4 nature 
 
216 
 
 nature of the atmosphere in general, as well as 
 of the different bodies which excite upon the 
 nerves of sense the sensation of dryness and of 
 moisture, of heat and of cold ; to separate the 
 matter which excites the sensation of heat and 
 of cold, from such as excites the sensation 
 of colour; — to prove what fire is, as Mell as 
 ice. It is the duty of the chemist to analize the 
 materials which flowing from different bodies 
 excite upon the eye the sensation of illumination 
 in general, and of colour in particular ; not only 
 to segregate a beam of light into rays, but to 
 analize each ray into its constituent parts; to 
 separate the matter of colour from the matter 
 of light \ and finally to present the solar ray 
 pure and unmixed as it subsists in its elemen- 
 tary and uncombined state. Until ready and 
 most satisfactory answers can be given to these 
 points, I shall consider chemistry most defective 
 and imperfect, undeserving the name of science, 
 and merely ranking on a level with other arts.* 
 
 • I purposely omit noticing the analysis of any part of the 
 Jiving system, whether of animals or of vegetables; because che* 
 
 The 
 
217 
 
 The sensation on the surface of the body is ex* 
 cited by the resistance which is opposed to the 
 nerves situated under the skin, the nature and 
 the design of which depend on the peculiarity 
 in the arrangment of the particles of the exter- 
 nal substances; it is from that peculiarity that 
 we decide whether a body is solid or fluid, — - 
 whether it be rough or smooth, blunt or sharp. 
 
 In the organs of hearing, sound in general is 
 excited by impressions on the auditory nerves, 
 through the medium of the tympanum, and it is 
 owing to the various undulations of the air, mo- 
 dified and altered by the organization of the ex- 
 ternal fabric of the ear, that sound in general is 
 made sound particular, sound particular mani- 
 fested by the variety of tones so distinctly per- 
 ceived by those who have what is called a good 
 
 mieal analysis, of any portion of it, can only be accomplished 
 after death; and consequently during the life of the system the 
 excretions only are the parts with which the chemist may 
 amuse himself in examining. 
 
 ear. 
 
218 
 
 ear. In the organ of hearing sound may be 
 considered the genus, tones the species. 
 
 In the organ of smelling the sensation of 
 odour is excited by the particles of bodies which 
 are applied to the olfactory nerves through the 
 medium of the scneiderian membrane : odour in 
 general is the genus, the quality of those odours 
 the species, whether aromatic or fetid. 
 
 In the organs of taste, the sensation of flavour 
 is excited by the different substances more es- 
 pecially received for food, and which are appli- 
 ed to the nerves of the tongue ; whilst flavour 
 in general constitutes the genus, the variety of 
 sensations which different kinds of food pro- 
 duce constitute the species. 
 
 In the organ of vision the rays of light im- 
 pressed on the retina of the eye excite the sen- 
 sation of illumination in general, and like dif- 
 ferent articles of food which excite different fla- 
 vours, different bodies conveyed to the eye 
 
 produce 
 
219 
 
 produce different colours. In vision illumina- 
 tion is the genus, of which colours are the spe- 
 cies ; every substance therefore in nature which 
 exists, of which the eye has any cognizance 
 whatever, whether it be black or white, brown 
 or yellow, or in short whatever colour or ap- 
 pearance it may assume, must be considered, 
 to be coloured. However ignorant we may be 
 of the proximate cause of sensation, we are cer- 
 tain only of the fact itself, and that it does not exist 
 in the external substance by which the impres- 
 sion is made, but in the living and sensitive prin 
 ciple alone by which the impression is received. 
 In the investigation of the doctrine of sensation the 
 question is not, as I have before detailed, whe- 
 ther sensation abides in bodies external to the 
 living system, but what are the bodies which 
 convey impressions upon the organs of sense in 
 general by means of which sensations are ex- 
 cited and produced. 
 
 ® Vide Chap. 3, p. 53. Part I. 
 
 Had 
 
220 
 
 Had physiologists and chemists been properly 
 informed of the distinction which exists between 
 impression and sensation — between the thing re- 
 ceived and the receiver, between the substance 
 without and the sensitive principle within, we 
 should have been spared thepain of hearing opini- 
 ons promulgated and taught by those few, very few 
 individuals, who lay down the law, and who 
 have been deluding the world for some cen- 
 turies past down to the present moment, — we 
 should have been spared the folly of being call- 
 ed upon to believe opinions that are not more 
 revolting to the feelings than they are to the 
 good, common unsophisticated sense and ap- 
 prehension of mankind, — amongst a multitude 
 of other things equally erroneous, 
 
 1. That matter in general, instead of being 
 essentially different is actually of the same na- 
 ture ; that instead of being separable into solid, 
 liquid, and gaseous, that on the contrary the 
 primary particles of matter are essentially solid 
 and massy. 
 
 2dly. 
 
221 
 
 2dly. That instead of these particles being 
 penetrable and permeable, as we behold them 
 to be, not only to the active powers of life and 
 of sensibility, — of light and of fire, as well as of a 
 variety of other chemical agents ; it is absolutely 
 affirmed, that the softest bodies are equally 
 solid with the hardest, and all essentially impe- 
 netrable. 
 
 3dly. That notwithstanding this pretended 
 impenetrable and impermeable quality inherent 
 in the primary particles of matter, they ne- 
 vertheless possess powers of attraction in pro- 
 portion to their quantity ; that one mass of mat- 
 ter by virtue of this power acts upon another 
 mass, and both upon each other, not only by 
 immediate contact, but independently of it, not 
 only where it is, but where it is not ; — that these 
 imaginary powers subsisting as causes produce 
 effects at themost remote parts of the solar system 
 that can be conceived, which effects are mani- 
 fested by the motions which the different planets 
 display, of which that system is composed, — as 
 well might it be affirmed, that something might 
 
 be 
 
222 
 
 be produced out of nothing, as to say, that a 
 body can act where it is not. 
 
 4thly. Instead of considering the liquid 
 which covers to an unfathomable depth two-thirds 
 of the surface of the earth, exclusive of what 
 constitutes rivers and lakes, and which is kept 
 suspended in the firmament above in the form 
 of atmosphere and clouds, and known by the 
 name of ivater, to be the base and fountain of fluid- 
 ity in general, it is on the contrary supposed 
 that this immense ocean is formed by, and is an 
 effect produced by the combined union of two 
 factitious airs, each of which are more than 
 nine hundred degrees rarer than the same given 
 bulk of water. # 
 
 * The universal admission of this hypothesis is only a fur* 
 ther proof of the little philosophy which exists with our expe- 
 rimentalists, and how liable they are to draw false conclusions 
 from the facts they behold. If this hypothesis were admitted, it 
 would go to the absurdity of supposing that the effect is greater 
 than the cause. The experiment upon which this opinion is 
 founded only goes to prove, that although water can be con- 
 verted into gas by the agency of certain powers, and that by ihe 
 substraction of those powers water is reproduced ; in the same 
 manner as by the agency of fire water can be converted into ste;» m,and 
 
 Instead 
 
223 
 
 5thly. Instead of supposing that the atmos- 
 phere acts like other gaseous bodies (under equal 
 degrees of external influence) by the attributes of 
 expansibility which are inherent in them equally 
 in every direction, it is universally supposed 
 that the pressure of the atmosphere upon the 
 earth, and upon every thing by which its sur- 
 face is covered, is the pressure of gravity or of 
 weight; that the weight and perpendicular pres- 
 sure of the atmosphere is in the proportion of 
 15 lbs. to every square inch of surface; and as 
 every square foot contains 144 square inches, 
 these must consequently sustain the pressure of 
 21801b. weight. Supposing, therefore, that a 
 man in an erect posture, taking one part with 
 another, is commensurate to a square of 16 in- 
 ches, it must in that case follow, that the per- 
 pendicular pressure upon him is equal in weight 
 to 2880 lb. But, alas ! if he happens to have a 
 broad brimmed hat, a parasol to keep off the sun, 
 or a parapluis to shelter him from the rain, the 
 
 by the substraction of fire water again formed; as well into a 
 solid form as we see it in ice and snow by certain changes which 
 it is the duty of the chemist to discover, but of which he does 
 not as yet appear to have any knowledge. 
 
 weight 
 
224 
 
 weight must in that case be as great as it is 
 when he is in a recumbent position, and when 
 the superficies of his body may be consequently 
 supposed encreased to a square of four feet at 
 least; the weight in that case must be equal to 
 11520 lb. ; and if the composition is further ex^ 
 tended, by adding the lateral and circumambient 
 pressure, which is supposed to be more than 
 double, the latter sum it is affirmed (and 
 very justly affirmed if the position was true 
 from whence these conclusions are drawn) that 
 in a man of about six feet high, and of the 
 usual bulk, the extent of surface being at least 
 sixteen feet, he must sustain a weight in every 
 direction of 30720 lbs. or more than sixteen tons 
 weight for his ordinary load ! ! ! 
 
 6thly. Instead of supposing that the colouring 
 quality of matter abides in the body from whence 
 it flows, like every other quality which causes 
 impressions upon the other organs of sense, it 
 is absolutely affirmed, and universally believed > 
 that the colour of a body proceeds from what 
 the body does not possess ; instead of arising 
 
 from 
 
225 
 
 fromraysofcolourwhichissueoutofitexciting up- 
 on the optic sense, particular sensations to which 
 the names of particular colours have been given, 
 it is supposed that the colour of every body pro- 
 ceeds from rays of colour which were never ad- 
 mitted within it ; but that are repelled from 
 it; and that a white body is white because 
 it reflects all the rays but absorbs none; 
 and a black body is black because it ab- 
 sorbs all the rays and reflects none ; it is there- 
 fore concluded that neither black or white are 
 colours. I would, however, ask any of these 
 worthies to tell me whether the matter by which 
 the sensation of white or of black is excited is 
 not as actual and potential as that by which the 
 sensation of red or of green, &c. &c. and whe* 
 ther snow and jet have not an actual existence, 
 as certainly as gold and indigo. 
 
 7thly. Instead of supposing that the quality of 
 matter by which the sensation oicold is produced 
 is as absolute as the quality of matter by which 
 the sensation of heat is excited, it is on the con- 
 trary universally affirmed and believed that cold 
 is a negative not a positive property ; that during 
 the winter season of the year, when we behold 
 fluids converted into a solid form, water be- 
 come ice, vegetation suspended, animation of- 
 
 q ten 
 
226 
 
 ten rendered torpid and destroyed by mortifi- 
 cation ; — although these effects are produced by 
 that modification of matter called cold, it may 
 perhaps appear somewhat strange to men of 
 common feelings, who possess common sense, 
 that the actual existence of the matter of cold 
 instead of being admitted should be denied by 
 all the most enlightened chemists and experi- 
 mental philosophers as they call themselves, of 
 the present day ; — and that none but ignorant 
 fools, if any there are so foolish dare to 
 think otherwise; that the effects which are 
 produced in the polar regions, as well as 
 in other countries during the winter do not 
 proceed from the matter of cold but that 
 they arise from the privation of heat; as if 
 snow or ice applied to bodies in which those 
 effects take place, have not an actual exist- 
 ence, as much as a flame of fire by the im- 
 pressions from which the sensation of heat is ex- 
 cited and combustion produced. 
 
 8thly. Although the tops of the most lofty moun- 
 tains, at all degrees of latitude from the equator to 
 the poles, are uniformly and everlastingly cover- 
 ed with snow and ice, and the sensation of cold 
 so excessive that neither man or beast are cap- 
 able of supporting its influence : it is nevertheless 
 
 generally 
 
227 
 
 generally believed that the sun is a globe ofjire, 
 that is to say, that the purer the medium through 
 which the intensity of the fire ought to be most 
 felt, and the nearer it is approached, the colder 
 it will feel. 
 
 9thly. That fire is capable of existing in two 
 separate states, in a sensible and in a latent state; 
 in the one exciting the sensation of heat to ani- 
 mated beings, and expansion to the medium by 
 which it is contained; in the other state it nei- 
 ther produces heat or expansion. 
 
 lOthly. Although every fact which we pos- 
 sess goes to prove that every particle of fire 
 belonging to our system is repellent and expan- 
 sible, — imponderable and destitute of gravity or 
 weight; it is nevertheless believed that it is by 
 the attraction of gravitation that the different 
 heavenly bodies are dragged and pulled down 
 by the sun, a globe of repellent fire, as the at- 
 tracting centre of the whole solar system. 
 
 llthly. That although rare bodies have as 
 great a tendency to rise as dense bodies to fall, 
 and that the gravity of one body is consequently 
 relative to the levity of another; although these 
 facts are universally true, the fourth law of the 
 Newtonian philosophy is nevertheless founded in 
 
 direct 
 
228 
 
 direct violation of them, viz. that all bodies are 
 mutually heavy or gravitate towards each other ! 
 
 12thly. And finally, it is concluded that a 
 cart which is of itself essentially passive, and 
 only offers resistance to an external force, never- 
 less draws the horse as much as the horse draws 
 the cart; that is to say that the effect produced 
 by a passive body is equal to the effect produced 
 by one which is active : and from this false as- 
 sumption is founded the third grand and gene- 
 ral law of nature, which is supposed in a great 
 measure to regulate the whole planetary system 
 viz. that re-action is always equal and contrary 
 to action. 
 
 However obnoxious or ridiculous I may ap- 
 pear for disbelieving what to me is contrary to 
 common sense and common apprehension, al- 
 though sanctioned by the greatest authorities 
 and universal acquiescence, I shall neverthe- 
 less give it my veto, and shall, at a future op- 
 portunity, shew that the assumption of these 
 false facts for principles, have led to the greatest 
 errors in the science of physics that can be 
 conceived. fi ^ 4 '% 
 
 END OF THE FIRST PART. 
 
 Plummer and Brewis, Printers, Love Laus, Little £s»tcheap. 
 
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