of what the living principle does; and how it operates on inorganic principles. With the living, the animative properties of organized bodies, chemistry has not the smallest alliance; and probably will never, in any degree, elucidate these properties. The phenomena of life, are not, even remotely, analogous to any thing we know in chemistry, as exhibited among inorganic agents. The great error of chemists, therefore, has been their attempting to apply that science to explain phenomena, for the explanation of which, chemistry, as we have said, is totally valueless. Such perversion of the reasoning powers, has too much prevailed among physiologists in all ages. In the earlier ages, heat was considered the principle of life. In later times, electricity has been discovered ; and to electricity, the same functions have been ascribed. Life, according to other philosophers, is motion. But the progress of science has dispelled all these illusions: the origin of the obscure and evanescent principle of life, must be sought elsewhere. By heat, for example, many wonderful things may be accomplished; but heat will not act of itself. The powers of electricity are still more wonderful than those of heat: but electricity, we know to be governed, in its mode of action, by certain laws, and that it gives no sign of intelligence. In the same manner, life, as we are acquainted with it, cannot

exist without motion; but motion can exist without life. Life and motion, consequently, are not synonymous terms; nor can we conceive the existence of motion, without a mover. In short, the living principle, as already pointed out, is something different from, and superadded to the common agencies of matter; over which, to a certain extent, it has a control. Thus, the phenomena exhibited by the mysterious agency of life, are strictly comparable only with one another; and have no relation to any inorganic phe

nomena.

But the desire of the Physiologist to ascribe to the agencies of inorganic matter, those operations carried on within living bodies, is merely a display of that innate propensity of the human mind, which leads us to seek after First Causes. The conceptions of the physiologist regarding the principle of life are the same, therefore, as the conceptions of mankind in all ages regarding the Great First Cause-the Deity himself. The poor untutored savage "sees God in every cloud, and hears him in the wind." The complacent philosopher smiles at the credulity of the savage, and perhaps deifies "the laws of nature!" Both are alike ignorant; nor is the imagined Supreme Being of the untaught savage, in any degree, more absurd, than the imagined Pantheism of the philosopher. The winds we know can be referred to other causes, to which they

are immediately owing: so with the progress of knowledge, the "laws of nature," have been found to merge, and will continue to be found to merge, into other laws, still more general; thus proving that these laws are, all alike, mere delegated agencies. Hence the tendency of knowledge, and of its due application, is to abstract the attention from inferior things, and to fix the mind on the source of all knowledge and of all power-the GREAT FIRST CAUSE; who exists and acts throughout the universe; whom we can approach only, by studying His works; and whose works, an eternity, will be inadequate to explore.

APPENDIX

CONTAINING

ADDITIONAL NOTES AND EMENDATIONS.

Page 17. "Forces of Gravitation."-Many objections have been offered to the term vis inertia adopted by Newton. Indeed, to speak of mere inertia, or inactivity, as a force, is obviously absurd. We have always agreed with those who think that the term inertia has been unfortunately chosen; since inertia expresses only one quality, as it were, of that which is attracted, or which reacts, in nature. But, we fully acquiesce in the opinion, that whatever resists attraction or reacts, is as appropriately named a force, in a certain sense of that term, as that which attracts or acts; and such resistance is, in all instances, virtually considered as a force by the mathematician, however he may choose to designate it.

Page 34.-We fear the terms chemical and cohesive axes are not quite legitimate. We have employed these and other familiar modes of expression, such as "forces of gravitation," "polarizing forces," &c. above alluded to, either on account of the general reader, for whom this work is principally intended, or for the sake of analogy.

Page 50.-Elementary form of electrical energies, &c. Throughout this work, as just observed, we have adhered as