accomplished the object for which it was created to cease to exist? From this we infer that it would not be against sound philosophy to maintain that the souls of brutes are reduced to non-existence. 19. But supposing there is no question of annihilation, is there any reason against their continuing to exist? If there be, we know not what it is. We know not of what use they would be; but we may conjecture that absorbed anew into the bosom of nature they would not be useless. Neither do we know the use of many other beings, and yet we cannot therefore deny their existence, or doubt their utility. Who says that the vital principle residing in brutes can have no object if the organization which it animates be destroyed? Does the destruction of a plant involve, perchance, the extinction of all the vital principles residing in it? Do these principles, by not operating upon the organized being just destroyed, therefore cease to be of any use in the wonderful laboratory of nature? Who will say that a vital principle cannot be useful if it does not act upon an object within our observation? Who will assert that vital principles do not in the recesses of nature act in many and different ways, and that the effects of their activity are not presented very differently according to circumstances, yet always in conformity to laws established by infinite wisdom? Do not the magnificent profusion of radical materials, the gems without number which we everywhere discover, the immense amount of matter susceptible of transformation and assimilation by the living being, the mysteries of generation in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, all indicate to us that there are scattered over the universe an infinite number of vital principles, which exercise their activity in very different ways, and over a scale of astonishing extent? Who shall assure us that the same vital principle may not present very diverse phenomena, according to the conditions which determine its action? Does not the same principle reside in the acorn, as in the gnarled old oak that for ages has defied the fury of the tempest? Did experience not show it to be so, who would ever have suspected the vital principle of a shapeless and filthy caterpillar to be the same as that of a beautiful butterfly? It is not then contrary either to reason or to experience to suppose the soul of brutes, the vital principle residing in them, to continue after the organization of the body is destroyed, and, absorbed anew in the treasures of nature, to be there preserved, not as a useless thing, but in the exercise of its faculties in different ways, according to the conditions to which it is subjected.(29) CHAPTER III. SLEEP AND WAKING.