body, and peace of mind. An infringement of
them will as certainly be attended with disease and suffering to the
one, and sorrow and anguish to the other.

Lower grades of animals partake of many qualities in common with man. In
some they are deficient; in others they are superior. Some animals are
possessed of all but reason, and even in that, the highest of them come
very little short of the lowest of the human species. If they have not
reason, they possess an instinct which nearly approaches it. These
qualities dwindle down gradually thro the various orders and varieties
of animated nature, to the lowest grade of animalculae, a multitude of
which may inhabit a single drop of water; or to the zoophytes and
lythophytes, which form the connecting link between the animal and
vegetable kingdom; as the star-fish, the polypus, and spunges. Then
strike off into another kingdom, and observe the laws vegetable life.
Mark the tall pine which has grown from a small seed which _sent_ forth
its root downwards and its trunk upwards, drawing nourishment from
earth, air, and water, till it now waves its top to the passing breeze,
a hundred feet above this dirty earth: or the oak or olive, which have
_maintained_ their respective positions a dozen centuries despite the
operations of wind and weather, and have shed their foliage and their
seeds to propagate their species and extend their kinds to different
places. While a hundred generations have lived and died, and the country
often changed masters, they resist oppression, scorn misrule, and retain
rights and privileges which are slowly encroached upon by the inroads of
time, which will one day triumph over them, and they fall helpless to
the earth, to submit to the chemical operations which shall dissolve
their very being and cause them to mingle with the common dust, yielding
their strength to give life and power to other vegetables which shall
occupy their places.[10] Or mark the living principle in the "sensitive
plant," which withers at every touch, and suffers long ere it regains
its former vigor.

Descend from thence, down thro the various gradations of vegetable life,
till you pass the narrow border and enter the mineral world. Here you
will see displayed the same sublime principle, tho in a modified degree.
Minerals _assume_ different shapes, hues and relations; they increase
and diminish, attach and divide under various circumstances, all the
while _retaining_ their identit