Body, he observes, being essentially constituted of cellular tissue, this tissue is in some sort the matrix, from the modification of which by the fluids put in motion by the stimulus of desire, membranes, fibres, vascular canals, and divers organs, gradually appear; parts are strengthened and solidified;' and

as progressively new parts and organs are formed, and more and more perfect organizations produced; and thus, by consepence, in the lapse of ages a monad becomes a man!!!

The great object both of La Place and Lamarck seems to be to ascribe all the works of creation to second causes; and to account for the production of all the visible universe, and the furniture of our own globe, without the intervention of a first. Bth begin the work by introducing nebulosities or masses of Tatter scarcely amounting to real entities, and proceed as if they had agreed together upon the modus operandi.

As Lamarck's hypothesis relates particularly to the animal kom, I shall make a few observations upon it, calculated to prove its utter irrationality.

When, indeed, one reads the above account of the mode by wch, according to our author's hypothesis, the first vegetable ed animal forms were produced, we can scarcely help thinkng that we have before us a receipt for making the organized beings at the foot of the scale in either class-a mass of irri2 le matter formed by attraction, and a repulsive principle to ***duce into it and form a cellular tissue, are the only ingrecents necessary. Mix them, and you have an animal which bs to absorb fluid, and move about as a monad or a vibrio,

plies itself by scissions or germs, one of which being stated by a want to take its food by a mouth, its fluids

ve obediently towards its anterior extremity, and in time a mouth is obtained; in another generation, a more talented nd.vidual discovering that one or more stomachs and other 1 Anim, sans Fertèbr. i. 184.

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intestines would be a convenient addition to a mouth, the fluids immediately take a contrary direction, and at length this wish is accomplished; next a nervous collar round the gullet is acquired, and this centre of sensation being gained, the usual organs of the senses of course follow. But enough of this. Let any one examine the whole organization and structure, both internal and external, of any animal, and he will find that it forms a whole, in which the different organs and members have a mutual relation and dependence, and that if one is supposed to be abstracted, the whole is put out of order, and cannot fulfil its evident functions. If we select, as a well-known instance, the Hive-bee for an example. Its long tongue is especially formed to collect honey; its honey stomach to receive and elaborate it either for regurgitation, or for the formation of wax; and other organs or pores are added, by which the latter can be transmitted to the wax pockets under its abdomen; connected with these, are its means and instruments to build its cells, either for store cells, to contain its honey and bee-bread, or its young brood, such as the form of its jaws, and the structure and furniture of its hind legs. Now here are a number of organs and parts that must have been contemporary, since one is evidently constructed with a view to the other; and the whole organization and structure of the whole body forming the societies of these wonderworking beings, that I mean of the males, females, and workers, is so nicely adjusted, as to concur exactly in producing the end that an intelligent Creator intended, and directing cach to that function and office which he devolved upon them, and to exercise which he adapted them. Were we to go through the whole animal kingdom, the same mutual relation and dependence between the different parts and organs of the structure and their functions would be found.

Can any one in his rational senses believe for a moment that all these adaptations of one organ to another, and of the whole

structure to a particular function, resulted originally from the wants of a senseless animal living by absorption, and whose body consisted merely of cellular tissue, which in the lapse of

and in an infinity of successive generations, by the motwas of its fluids, directed here and there, produced this beauti fal and harmonious system of organs all subservient to one puse; and which in numerous instances vary their functens and organs, but still preserving their mutual dependeer, by passing through three different states of existence?

Lamarck's great error, and that of many others of his com patriots, is materialism; he seems to have no faith in any thing bat Ay, attributing every thing to a physical, and scarcely any thing to a metaphysical cause. Even when, in words, he almuts the being of a God, he employs the whole strength of his intellect to prove that he had nothing to do with the works of creation. Thus, he excludes the Deity from the government of the world that he has created, putting nature in his place; and with respect to the noblest and last formed of his creatures into whom he himself breathed the breath of life; he certa.nly admits him to be the most perfect of animals, but instead of a son of God, the root of his genealogical tree, according to hum, is an animalcule, a creature without sense or voluntary motion, or internal or external organs, at least in his idea-no work therefore that he considers his intellectual powers, not as indicating a spiritual substance derived from heaven, though resdent in his body, but merely as the result of his organization, and ascribes to him in the place of a soul, a certain imer sentiment, upon the discovery of which be prides him

In one of his latest descriptions of it, he thus describes otice of this internal sentiment: "Every action of an ante gent individual, whether it be a movement or a thought, 1 N Diet. D' Hat. Nat. xvi. Artic. Intelligence, 344. comp. Ibid. Artic. Iter, TB, MU.

or an act amongst the thoughts, is necessarily preceded by a want of that which has power to excite such action. This want felt immediately, moves the internal sentiment, and in the same instant, that sentiment directs the disposable portion of the nervous fluid, either upon the muscles of that part of the body which is to act, or upon the part of the organ of intelligence, where are impressed the ideas which should be rendered present to the mind, for the execution of the intellectual act which the want demands." In fact, Lamarck sees nothing in the universe but bodies, whence he confounds sensation with intellect. Our eyes certainly show us nothing but bodiestheir actions and motions, their structure, their form and colour; our ears the sounds they produce; our touch their degree of resistance or comparative softness or hardness; our smell their scent; our taste their flavour; but though our senses can conduct us no farther, we find a very active substance in full power within us that can. At a very early period of life we feel a wish to know something farther concerning the objects to which our senses introduce us, which often generates a restless desire in the mind to gain information concerning the causes and origin of those things perceived by them; now this is the result of thought, and thought is no body, and though the thinking essence inhabits a body, yet we cannot help feeling that our thoughts are an attribute of an immaterial substance. Thought, discursive and excursive thought, that is not confined to the contemplation of the things of earth, things that are immediately about us, but can elevate itself to heaven, and the heavenly bodies, not only to those of our own system, but can take flights beyond the bounds of time and space, and enter into the Holy of Holies, and contemplate Him who sitteth upon the cherubim, the throne of his Deity. Thought, that not only beholds things present, however distant and removed from

1 N. Dict. D'Hist. Nat. xvi. Artic. Intelligence, 350.

sense, but can contemplate the days of old and the years of many generations, can carry us back to hail with the angelic choirs, the birth-day of nature and of the world that we inhab.t; or looking into the abyss of futurity, can anticipate the termination of our present mixed scene-chequered with light and darkness, good and evil-and the beginning of that eternal sal bath which remaineth for the people of God in the heavenly Kreedom of Christ: thought that can not only take these £ 2* ts, and exercise herself in these heavenly musings; but accompanied as she is, in our favoured race, with the gift of speech, can reason upon them with a fellow mind, and by such dacuss on ofen elicit sparks of truth, that may be useful to el ghren mankind. Who can believe that such a faculty, so avite and god-like and spiritual, can be the mere result of sga: zaton? That any juxta-position of material molecules, ( whatever nature, from whatever source derived, in whatever order and form arranged, and wherever placed, could serate thought and reflection, and reasoning powers; could a pare and store up ideas and notions as well concerning me* plosteal as physical essences may as safely be pronounced

te, as that matter and spirit should be homogeneous. Prough the intellectual part acts by the brain and nerves, get the brain and nerves, however ample, however developed, arz tast the intellect, nor an intellectual substance, but only

strument, fitted for the passage of the prime messenger the wou', the nervous fluid or power, to every motive organ. It is a substance calculated to convey instantaneously that sactie agent, by which spirit can act upon body, wherever te sui b.'s it to go and enables it to act. When death separates the intellectual and spiritual from the material part, tea troduction of a fluid homogeneous with the nervous, or related to it by a galvanic battery can put the nerves in acta, lit the eye-lids, move the limbs, but though the action of the intellectual part may thus be imitated, in newly de

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