combination, and transmutation, which every
seed shews, are truly miraculous. Who can imagine that these wonderful
faculties are contained in these little bits of matter? To me it
appears much more philosophical to suppose that the mighty God of
nature is present in full energy in all these operations. To this all
powerful Being, it would be equally easy to raise an oak without an
acorn as with one. The preparatory process of putting seeds into the
ground is merely ordained for the use of man, as one among the various
other excitements necessary to awaken matter into mind. It is an idea
that will be found consistent, equally with the natural phenomena
around us, with the various events of human life, and with the
successive revelations of God to man, to suppose that the world is a
mighty process for the creation and formation of mind. Many vessels
will necessarily come out of this great furnace in wrong shapes. These
will be broken and thrown aside as useless; while those vessels whose
forms are full of truth, grace, and loveliness, will be wafted into
happier situations, nearer the presence of the mighty maker.

I ought perhaps again to make an apology to my readers for dwelling so
long upon a conjecture which many, I know, will think too absurd and
improbable to require the least discussion. But if it be as improbable
and as contrary to the genuine spirit of philosophy as I own I think it
is, why should it not be shewn to be so in a candid examination? A
conjecture, however improbable on the first view of it, advanced by
able and ingenious men, seems at least to deserve investigation. For my
own part I feel no disinclination whatever to give that degree of
credit to the opinion of the probable immortality of man on earth,
which the appearances that can be brought in support of it deserve.
Before we decide upon the utter improbability of such an event, it is
but fair impartially to examine these appearances; and from such an
examination I think we may conclude, that we have rather less reason
for supposing that the life of man may be indefinitely prolonged, than
that trees may be made to grow indefinitely high, or potatoes
indefinitely large. Though Mr Godwin advances the idea of the
indefinite prolongation of human life merely as a conjecture, yet as he
has produced some appearances, which in his conception favour the
supposition, he must certainly intend that these appearances should be
examined and this is all that