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INTRODUCTION.

THE ultimate object of animal life being pleasure, the law of self-preservation, or the love of life, will remain in full force so long as enjoyment is not outweighed by painful sensations, or until the organs of sense become indifferent to their accustomed stimuli. Every creature, therefore, is so wisely constructed, and endowed with such instincts, as induce it to make choice of those means which are best calculated to maintain and preserve its existence were not this the case, animal life would soon terminate.

But as individual life has a commencement, so also has it an end; and though the laws of nature should be at all times implicitly obeyed, and circumstances should be of the most favourable kind, yet there is a limit beyond which none can pass,-when vitality must yield to the universal range of chemical influence. Even man, the last and most complete result of Divine workmanship, is no exception to this general rule; nor can all his wisdom and intelligence reveal to him the means of escaping the sentence passed upon the father of our race :-" Dust

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