Never ceasing up and down, How the Powers of Heaven go, existed in the form of charcoal or wax, an active agent in the business of the world, and a main support of animal and vegetable life, and is still susceptible of running again and again the same round; so that for aught we can see to the contrary, the identical atom may lie concealed for thousands of centuries in a limestone rock, may at length be quarried, set free in the limekiln, mix with the air, be absorbed from it by plants, and in succession become part of the frames of myriads of living beings, till some concurrence of events, consigns it once more to a long repose, which, however, no way unfits it from again resuming its former activity." HERSCHEL'S NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. Bitumen and sulphur form the link between earth and metals; vitriols unite metals with salts; crystallizations connect salts with stones; the annanthes lytophite form a kind of tie between stones and plants; the polypus unites plants to insects; the tube worm seems to lead to shells and reptiles; the water-serpent, and the eel, form a passage from reptiles to fish ; the anas nigra are a medium between fishes and birds; the bat, and the flying squirrel, link birds to quadrupeds; and the monkey equally gives the hand to quadrupeds, and to man. "A beautiful connection subsists between the organic and inorganic kingdoms of nature. Inorganic matter affords food to plants, and they, on the other hand, yield subsistence to animals. The conditions necessary for animal and vegetable nutrition, are essentially different. An animal requires for its development, and for the sustenance of its vital functions, a Pass the golden vessels on,* Blessings from their pinions flow; From the chambers of the sky, Through the earth they penetrate; To universal harmony The universe they modulate.† certain class of substances, which can be generated by organic beings possessed of life. Although many animals are entirely carnivorous, yet their primary nutriment must be derived from plants, for the animals upon which they subsist, receive their nourishment from vegetable matter. Plants, on the other hand, find new nutritive material only in inorganic substances. Hence one great end of vegetable life, is to generate matter adapted for the nutrition of animals, out of inorganic substances, which are not fitted for this purpose." Liebig's Chemistry of Agriculture. * Of Light by far the greater part he took Repairing in their golden urns draw light, And hence the morning planet gilds her horns. + Below lay stretched the universe, There far as the remotest line That bounds imagination's flight, Paradise Lost. What a sight--but alas, only a sight : How shall I grasp thee Nature infinite,* Where are thy breasts? life's universal springs,† That Heaven and Earth sustain, Countless and unending orbs, In mazy motion intermingled, Yet still fulfilled immutably Above, below, around, In eloquent silence through the depths of space * Spirit of Nature! No, The pure diffusion of thy essence throbs Thy throne of power unappealable; Thou art the judge before whose nod Is powerless as the wind That passeth idly by ; Thine the tribunal which surpasses As God surpasses Man.-Shelley. Life of interminable multitudes, Soul of these mighty spheres, To which the withered heart convulsive clings, Whose changeless path through heaven's deep silence lie, The dwelling of whose life Thy will unconsciously fulfilled, Like theirs his age of endless peace Which Time is fast maturing, Will swiftly, surely come, And the unbounded frame which thou pervadest, Will be without a flaw Marring its perfect symmetry. Shelley. "The knowledge of nature is only possible on these two conditions that there are certain relations subsisting between the System of Nature and the Human Mind, and that harmony reigns throughout the system of natural objects, and the necessary subordination of each separately to some general end. Considered in this light, organized being is the most excellent production of nature. The examination of any organical body displays an admirable subordination of the parts to the whole, and the whole itself is in exquisite harmony with each of its parts. But at the same time, the whole itself is but a mean to other ends, a part in a greater totality. Consequently the most exalted form of the teleological judgment, is that which considers the whole system of nature as one vast organical structure."- Kant. He turns the book over unwillingly, and gazes on the sign of the Spirit of the Earth. What different feelings waken at the sign; Thou Spirit of the Earth* to me art nigher, I glow as with the glow of fresh strong wine, * "The philosophy of Pythagoras, which was full of superstition, did first plant a monstrous imagination, which afterwards was, by the school of Plato and others, watered and nourished. It was that the world was one entire living creature, insomuch as Apollonius of Tyana, a Pythagorean prophet, affirmed that the ebbing and flowing of the sea was the respiration of the world, drawing in water and putting it forth again. They went on and inferred that if the world were a living creature, it had a soul and spirit, which they also held, calling it Spiritus Mundi, the Spirit or Soul of the world, by which they did not intend God, for they did admit of a deity beside, but only the soul or essential form of the universe. This foundation being laid, they might build upon it what they would, for in a living creature, though never so great, as for example in a great whale, the sense and effects of any one part of his body instantly make a transcenscion throughout the whole body, and that by this they did insinuate, that no distance of place nor want of indisposition of matter could hinder magical operations, but that, for example, we might here in Europe have sense and feeling of what was done in China, and likewise we might work any effect without and against nature, and this not holpen by the co-opera E |