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2f2 ' On. Vitality, - > :
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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that the sarnc science may be successfully studied to the improvement of the capabilities of the human race both fdr beauty and for wisdom . Having shewed that life is not
organization but that which acts upon organization , I now proceed to noticfc that it appears from * nature , that there may be a suspension of the actions of life for months and years
without life being destroyed : that this is the case in mosses , die ears of blighted corn , the seta equina , the 'wheel polype , and in several species of snails , as we learn from the
Philosophical Transactions , &c . They are proved to be capable of being kept as dried preparations , and after a total suspension of irritability and contractility for many years , they have by a proper application of water been restored to life and all its functions , from which we 3 re entitled to
conclude that death . does not set free the animating princi p le , and that it cannot be separated therefrom but b y decomposition , organization being the instrument of which life is the controller and director .
It does not appear that life is destroyed with the decomposition of the body , but on the contrary , by the decomposition of body the princi p le of life is fitted for rising in trie order of existence . We know not any thing in nature which has life but what
supports that life by death . If there is any thing , it is the small and minute seed of the lowest order of vegetation which spring upon trie naked rack and become by repeated death the pahulum to a higher species of
vegetable life . Why this general order of Providence ? May ive not conjecture that the intention of Providence is by successive transformation eventually to swallow up mortality in life ?
The farmer who for a scries of years sows beans , wheat , oats , « r any otner crop , if he docs not manure his land will soon find a cessation of his crops ' , however productive they were at first . If the seed grows , the produce will be hauin , or straw , the berin , the corn will be absent . Yet the dissolution of water is the alone
support 6 f the plants its oxygeue , hyclrogene and carbon produce the whole plant . Is pot the cause of this lo& of the seed , the absence of ilxe proper riving principle adapted t « the
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najLure of tire plant , ? . \ X was in ik former crQps consumed , for , vva ^ t of this nature labours in vain ^ ihefpjan-t y > ine s after the end of its existence , and telU by the misery aud emptiness of its growth that it disdains a useless creation .
L . ife , then , appears to have a growth and an increase . How it is developed in the vegetable . creation we are necessaril y ignorant of , { "tut w # know that a stiiriciency of energy is in it for the ex er tion of the organic matter of the plant , for its present good and future progeny . Plants smile at the consciousness of human
benefits , and droop under the ill-usage of man : transported to foreign parts ^ they adapt their habits to the climate , and if they survive its influence , their manners conform to their novel situation . Every living animal according to its powers of motion and
knowledge has higher degrees of consciousness , and manifests the passions of love , hatred ar \ d revenge , Hope , doubt , fear and hesitation : their mental passions manifest the selfish principle-Some even enter into the social order , and by their strength through union
manifest , that in what concerns the public welfare they are worthy of legislating even for man . Man is in some things inferior to all , but by his speech he is able to combine tfcie past with the present and determine for the future ; his knowledge is-his power , and by it , on earth , to all the
animals , he is the representative of " God . In him is on earth the highest perfection of life ; still transitory is bis state j like all former states of vitality }; waiting to be new clothed ** with & spiritual mansion , " adapted to a higher and more perfect state of creation .
This Life at its first existence must have been a point , a stimulus , un energy ; had it been two points , < $ V stiinulus ' s capable of division , it wonlcT be capable of producing two conscious identities . This point , stiinulu $ > or energy has never lost through Jjfe its ^
identity , but is from birth to death always the same conscious vital point , for we always feel . per ^ o ira l identity fram infancy to old age . Not sq i \\ e body . This was at one Ume « &lm < f 9 t imperceptibly minute i whetjier « it ij $ * r creases or decreases , whether itypre-s serves all its members or is ~ xn ^ tiii ) ttrd : of them all , the rational principle -ijt not injured but in many inetismoc *
2f2 ' On. Vitality, - ≫ :
2 f 2 ' On . Vitality , - > :
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1817, page 212, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2463/page/20/
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