10. We have heard that some of the stimuli which produce animal life, are derived from the moral and physical evils of our world. From beholding these instruments of death thus converted by divine skill into the means of life, we are led to believe goodness to be the supreme attribute of the Deity, and that it will appear finally to predominate in all his works.
11. The doctrine which has been delivered, is calculated to humble the pride of man by teaching him his constant dependence upon his Maker for his existence, and that he has no pre-eminence in his tenure of it, over the meanest insect that flutters in the air, or the humblest plant that grows upon the earth. What an inspired writer says of the innumerable animals which inhabit the ocean, may with equal propriety be said of the whole human race. “Thou sendest forth thy spirit, and they are created. Thou takest away their breath—they die, and return to their dust.”
12. Melancholy indeed would have been the issue of all our inquiries, did we take a final leave of the human body in its state of decomposition in the grave. Revelation furnishes us with an elevating, and comfortable assurance that this will not be the case. The precise manner of its re-organization, and the new means of its future existence, are unknown to us. It is sufficient to believe, the event will take place, and that after it, the soul and body of man will be exalted in one respect, to an equality with their Creator. They will be immortal.
Here, gentlemen, we close the history of animal life. I feel as if I had waded across a rapid and dangerous stream. Whether I have gained the opposite shore with my head clean, or covered with mud and weeds, I leave wholly to your determination.
Footnotes:
[89] Lect. xi. p. 198.
[90] “Organization, sensation, spontaneous motion, and life, exist only at the surface of the earth, and in places exposed to light. We might affirm the flame of Prometheus's torch was the expression of a philosophical truth that did not escape the ancients. Without light, nature was lifeless, inanimate, and dead. A benevolent God, by producing life, has spread organization, sensation, and thought over the surface of the earth.”—Lavoisier.
[91] It is probable, the first impulse of life was imparted to the body of Adam by the decomposition of air in his lungs. I infer this from the account given by Moses of his creation, in Genesis, chap. ii. v. 7. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” in consequence of which, the verse adds, he became “a living soul.” This explanation of the origin of life in the father of the human race, appears to accord more with reason, as well as the order of the words which describe it, than the common opinion of his having been animated by the infusion of a living soul into his body.
[92] A fever was excited in Cinna the poet, in consequence of his dreaming that he saw Cæsar, the night after he was assassinated, and was invited to accompany him to a dreary place, to which he pointed, in order to sup with him. Convulsions and other diseases, I believe, are often excited in the night, by terrifying or distressing dreams.
Plutarch's Life of M. Brutus.