principle, shewing itself by successive developements for a limited period, varying according to the species, when it begins to decline and finally is extinguished: that sometimes also, like heat, as in the seed of the vegetable and egg of the animal, it is latent, not manifesting itself by developement, till it is submitted to the action of imponderable fluids, conveyed by moisture or incubation.

But to return to our author. "We have seen," says he, "that the life which we remark in certain bodies, in some sort resembled nature, insomuch that it is not a being, but an order of things animated by movements; which has also its power, its faculties, and which exercises them necessarily while it exists.' He also ascribes these vital movements to an existing cause. Speaking of the imponderable incoercible fluids, and specifying heat, electricity, the magnetic fluid, &c. to which he is inclined to add light, he says, it is certain that without them, or certain of them, the phenomenon of life could not be produced in any body. Now, though heat, electricity, &c. are necessary to put the principle of life

1 Anim. sans Vertèbr. i. 321.

2 Ibid. i. 43.

in motion, they evidently do not impart it. The seed of a vegetable, or the egg of a bird have each of them, if I may so speak, a punctum saliens, a radiating principle, which, under certain circumstances, they can retain in a latent state, for a considerable time; but if once that principle is extinct, no application of heat, or electricity, under any form, can revive it, so as to commence any developement of the germe it animated. Experiments have been made upon human bodies; and those of other animals, which, by the application of galvanism, after death, have exhibited various muscular movements, such as lifting the eye-lids, moving the arms and legs, &c. but though motions usually produced by the will acting by the nerves upon the muscles have thus been generated by a species of the electric fluid, proving its affinity with the nervous power or fluid, yet the subjects of the experiment, when the action was intermitted, continued still without life; no return of that power or essence which was fled for ever, being effected by it, which seems to render it clear that neither caloric nor electricity, though essential concomitants of life, form its

essence.

I trust I may render some service to the cause of truth and science, if I again revert to the subject which I mentioned at the beginning of this introduction, I mean the study of the word of God, together with that of his works, with the view to illustrate one by the other.

The great and wonderful genius before alluded to, Lord Verulam, who laid the foundation upon which the proud structure of modern philosophy is erected, who banished from science the visionary theories of the speculator,' and the unfounded dogmas of the bigot, and made experiment, and, as it were, the anatomy of nature, the root of true physical knowledge; warns the philosopher against making holy scripture his text book, for a system of philosophy, which he says, is like seeking the dead amongst the living. I am disposed, however, to think that this illustrious philosopher, by this observation, did not mean to exclude all study of the word of God, with a view to discover what is therein delivered concerning physical subjects, for he himself speaks of the book of Job, as pregnant with

1 Idola Specús.

2

2 De Augment. Sc. 1. ix. e. 1. § 3.

the mysteries of natural philosophy; but his object was to point out the evil effects of a superstitious and bigotted adherence to the letter of scripture, concerning which men were very liable to be mistaken, and of inattention to its spirit, which is averse to all persecution, so that persons of a philosophic mind might not be interrupted in their investigations of nature, by the clamours or menaces of mistaken men.

In the dark ages, anterior to the Reformation, superstition occupied the seat of true and rational religion. Ye do err not knowing the Scriptures, was an observation almost universally applicable. The armed hand of authority was lifted up against all such as endeavoured to interpret either Scripture or nature upon just and rational principles. Every such effort was rejected, was reprobated ex cathedra, and persecuted as a dangerous and pestilent heresy : thus every avenue to the discovery of truth, either in religion or science, was attempted to be closed. This evil spirit it was that proscribed the system of Copernicus, and,

1 Ubi supr. 1. ix. c. 1, § 47, ed. 1740.

Lord

because it appeared contrary to the letter of Scripture, persecuted Galileo for affirming that the earth moved round the sun. Verulam clearly saw the evil consequences that would result to the cause of true philosophy, if the sober study of nature, and all experimental research into the works of creation, were to be denounced as impious, because of some seeming discordance with the letter of Scripture, or because a narrowminded theologian could not discern where the writers of the Bible adopted popular phraseology, in condescension to the innocent prejudices and uninformed understandings of those to whom they addressed themselves; and he therefore employed all the energy of his powerful mind to persuade the learned theologian, that for the discovery of physical truth we must have recourse to induction from experiment and soberly conducted investigation of physical phenomena, while for spiritual we should seek to draw living waters from the fountain of life contained in Scripture. The Bible was not intended to make us philosophers, but to make us wise unto salvation.

But it does not follow, because we are to