determinate laws, which oblige them to submit to necessary changes. We
shall find, in the formation, in the growth, in the instantaneous life,
of animals, vegetables, and minerals, nothing but matter; which
combining, accumulating, aggregating, and expanding by degrees, forms
beings, who are either feeling, living, vegetating, or else destitute of
these faculties; which, having existed some time under one particular
form, are obliged to contribute by their ruin to the production of other
forms.

Thus, to speak strictly, nothing in Nature is either born, or dies,
according to the common acceptation of those terms. This truth was felt
by many of the ancient philosophers. PLATO says, that according to
tradition, "the living were born of the dead, the same as the dead did
come of the living; and that this is the constant routine of Nature." He
adds from himself, "who knows, if to live, be not to die; and if to die,
be not to live?" This was the doctrine of PYTHAGORAS, a man of great
talent and no less note. EMPEDOCLES asserts, "there is neither birth nor
death, for any mortal; but only a combination, and a separation of that
which was combined, and that this is what amongst men they call birth,
and death." Again he remarks, "those are infants, or short-sighted
persons, with very contracted understandings, who imagine any thing is
born, which did not exist before, or that any thing can die or perish
totally."





CHAP. IV.