What variety of springs, what forces, and what mechanical motions are enclosed in this small part of matter which composes the body of an animal? What properties, what harmony, and what correspondence between the various parts? How many combinations, arrangements, causes, effects, and principles, conspire to complete one end, and which we know only to be results so very difficult to comprehend, that they only cease from being marvellous by the long custom of not reflecting on them? Nevertheless, however admirable this work appears, it is not the individual that is the most wonderful; but it is in the succession, reproduction, and duration of species, that nature becomes inconceivable. This faculty of reproduction, which resides alone in animals and vegetables; this kind of unity always subsisting, and seemingly eternal; this procreative power, which perpetually exercises itself without being destroyed, is a mystery, the depth of which we are not enabled to fathom. Inanimate bodies, even the stones and dirt under our feet, have some properties; their existence alone supposes a great number; and the least organic matter has an infinity of relations with the other parts of the universe. We shall not say, with some philosophers, that matter, under whatever form it may be, is sensible of its existence and relative faculties. This is a metaphysical question, and of which we do not here propose to treat, it will be sufficient to observe, that not having a perfect knowledge of our own relation with external objects, we cannot doubt that inanimate matters are still more ignorant; besides, as our sensations do not in the least resemble the objects which cause them, we must conclude, by analogy, that inanimate matter has neither sentiment, sensation, nor a consciousness of its existence; to attribute any of these faculties to it, would be giving it the power of thought, action, and perception, nearly in the same manner as we think, act, and feel, which is as much repugnant to reason as it is to religion. Inanimate bodies being formed of earth and dust, we have, of course, some properties in common with them, but they are merely relative to what arises from general matter, such as extent, impenetrability, weight, &c. but as these properties, purely material, make no impression of themselves, as they exist entirely independent, and do not at all affect us, we cannot consider them as a part of our being; it is therefore the organization, the soul, and the life, which constitute our existence. Matter, considered in this light, is less the principal than the accessor. It is a foreign expansion, the union of which is unknown, and the presence hurtful to us; and thought, which is the constituent principle of our being, is very probably entirely independent.