And the same truth which affirms my existence, denies its negative; so also the same law of nature, which in truth produceth an animal life and supports it for a season, wears it out, and in its natural course reduces it to its original elements again. The vegetable world also presents us with a constant aspect of productions and dissolutions; and the bustle of elements is beyond all conception; but the dissolution of forms is not the dissolution of matter, or the annihilation of it, nor of the creation, which exists in all possible forms and fluxilities; and it is from such physical alterations of the particles of matter, that animal or vegetable life is produced and destroyed. Elements afford them nutrition, and time brings them to maturity, decay and dissolution; and in all the prolific production of animal life, or the productions of those of a vegetative nature, throughout all their growth, decay and dissolution, make no addition or diminution of creation; but eternal nature continues its never ceasing operations, (which in most respects are mysterious to us) under the unerring guidance of the providence of God. Animal nature consists of a regular constitution of a variety of organic parts, which have a particular and necessary dependance on each other, by the mutual assistance whereof the whole are animated. Blood seems to be the source of life, and it is requisite that it have a proper circulation from the heart to the extreme parts of the body, and from thence to the heart again, that it may repeat its temporary rounds through certain arteries and veins, which replenish every minutia part with blood and vital heat; but the brain is evidently the seat of sensation, which through the nervous system conveys the animal spirits to every part of the body, imparting to it sensation and motion, constituting it a living machine-, which could never have been produced, or exercised its respective functions in any other sort of world but this; which is in a constant series of fluxilities, and which causeth it to produce food for its inhabitants. An unchangeable world could not admit of production or dissolution, but would be identically the same, which would preclude the existence and nutriment of such sensitive creatures as we are. The nutrition extracted from food by the secret aptitudes of the digesting powers (by which mysterious operation it becomes incorporated with the circulating juices, supplying the animal functions with vital heat, strength and vigor) demands a constant flux and reflux of the particles of matter, which is perpetually incorporating with the body, and supplying the place of the superfluous particles that are constantly discharging themselves by insensible perspiration; supporting, and at the same time, in its ultimate tendency, destroying animal life. Thus it manifestly appears, that the laws of the world in which we live, and the constitution of the animal