WERE the European Philosopher to turn his eyes on this new Empire, to see in what order and degree those dispo­sitions and arts, which characterize polished humanity, arise among us, he would undoubtedly perceive that the extension of benevolence has kept exact pace with the diffusion of knowledge.

Our venerable ancestors early sowed the seeds of science in this land, and watched their growth with pious care; and it is not difficult to discover the diffusive spirit of benevolence following every where the encreasing light of science.

Without being particular on this head, one instance of it honourable to humanity, is the cordial adoption, and gene­rous support given to this Humane Society, which is formed on a very extensive scale of benevolence.

[Page 2] I decline giving a history of this or similar institutions; nor shall I descant on the beneficial influence of those numerous humane associations, which mark and dignify the age in which we live. Suffice it to say, that the success attending the Socie­ties established for restoring drowned persons at Amsterdam, Hamburgh, London, Padua, Vienna, Paris and elsewhere, in­duced some respectable characters to form one in Boston. But they have gone beyond the European Societies, and have extended their plan not only to the restoration of life, when apparently lost, but to the preservation of it when in imminent danger.

It is scarcely necessary to say that the plan of this Society is totally void of all private interested views. None of its members receive any other recompence than the sublime joy of doing good.

I shall avoid speaking of any particular mode of treating persons apparently dead, and shall confine myself to the great principle of VITALITY, ANIMATION, or LIFE. I feel the difficulty of doing justice to so copious a subject in the short space allotted to a discourse.

The subject of animation is not merely curious, but leads to usefulness. It has arrested the attention of Philosophers in almost every age of the world. Some of the antients reasoned thus on it, matter of itself cannot move, yet it is evident all [Page 3] things change, and that nothing is truly lost; that the sum total of matter in the Universe remains perfectly the same; and as it was the work of OMNIPOTENCE to create something out of nothing, the same Omnipotence is required to reduce any thing back to nothing.^† It is apparent that there is an univer­sal change, or mutation of all things into all, then must there be some one primary matter, common to all things out of which they were made—They went still further, and enquired into the moving principle, the efficient cause, that is to say, that cause, which associates the elements of natural substances, and which employs them when associated, according to their various and peculiar characters^‡ This moving principle they called the Anima Mundi, the Soul of the World.

THALES, one of the seven wise men of Greece, maintained, that Water was the subtile principle that moved all things. He concluded so, from observing that matter was chiefly dealt out in moisture; that the seeds of plants so long as they are in a growing state, are moist; and that a vegetable will grow to a considerable size from water alone; that the Earth is refreshed, recruited and made fruitful by water:—that the Air itself is but an expansion, or expiration of water. He reminds us of the immense quantities in the subterraneous regions, whence fountains, and rivers, like so many veins in the body, convey water over the surface, and through the bowels of our Globe, to vivify and sustain the whole.

[Page 4] HERACLITUS maintained a very different doctrine. He taught that Fire was the vivifying principle of all things. He allowed the truth of Thales' doctrine, but observed that fire had such an universal sway in nature, that water itself was not without a mixture of it; for that water grows hard and congeals into Ice when fire leaves it, and is only restored to its fluidity by entering it again. He remarked that the whole mass of waters in the sea, was actually an ocean of fire, seeing there were not two distinct drops of water, which do not owe their fluidity to some portion of fire enclosed within them. So deeply rooted was the doctrine that fire was the first or animating principle, that there were, and still are whole nations who worship it as a Deity.^†

ANAXIMENES contradicted both these philosophers; and contended that Air was the vivifying principle and first mover of all things. He observed that although the water of Thales could not subsist without the fire of Heraclitus, yet fire itself could not exist without Air, which was the very spirit of flame and the breath of life. That no seed of vegetables, eggs [Page 5] of animals, be they ever so ripe, or pregnant, and cherished with ever so kindly a warmth, will ever bring forth the embryos contained in them, if they be totally deprived of air. We shall see hereafter the necessity of attending to these powerful agents, fire and air, in the resuscitation of those apparently dead by suspension, submersion, or frost.

Let us now examine the subject of animation with the light afforded us by more modern Philosophers.

From them we learn that matter is inert, that any one particle of matter left to itself will continue always in the same state, with regard to its motion or rest. There are, however, certain powers. which two particles of matter have of acting on one another, as in gravitation and cohesion. We learn also that there is an attraction of chrystallization, by which bodies when fluid become in time solid, and assume a particu­lar figure; that there is an attraction of magnetism, by which a piece of iron in certain circumstances, attracts another piece of iron: that there is an attraction of electricity, by which a substance charged with more electric matter flies to another charged with less. There is, moreover, chemical attraction, by which two particles of different bodies rush together, and form one. If we add that most of these have their opposite repulsions, we can say that they are all the known properties of mere matter; and there is nothing in them that can merit the name of vitality

[Page 6] But there is in a growing vegetable a power beyond all this, viz. a power which first moves, and then conducts that latent process by which a seed becomes a plant.

Now, every body capable of growing, has a certain internal adjustment, disposition, or arrangement of its matter, which is called organization; and being capable of encreasing in bulk has a certain degree of vitality. There is a scale of life, stretch­ing in uniform gradation from human excellence downwards, till it disappears in a shade of ambiguity, in the living state of vegetables.^† Life, says the Bishop of Landaff, belongs alike to both the animal and vegetable kingdom, and seems to depend on the same principle in both. Stop the motion of a fluid in an animal limb, by a strong ligature, the limb mortifies beyond the ligature and drops off; a branch of a tree, under like circumstances, grows dry and rots away.—Both animals and vegetables are subject to be frost-bitten and to consequent mortifications; both languish in excessive heats; both experi­ence extravasation of juices from repletion, and pinings from inanition; both can suffer amputation of limbs without being deprived of life, and in a similar manner both form a callus; both are liable to contract disease by infection; both are strengthened by air and motion.

Every seed of a plant is an organized body endowed with vessels, and contains under several membranes the plant in miniature.^‡ If this seed be put into the moist earth, and a [Page 7] certain degree of heat applied, with a free access of air, (the three principles of the antient Philosophers) the juice in these vessels will expand by the warmth; and being thus once put in motion, gradually encrease, and grow up into a plant; which plant produces a similar seed, capable of propagating it's kind forever.

In like manner an Egg is an organized body, which con­tains under several envelopements the chicken in miniature, and may be considered as a womb, detached from the body of the parent animal, in which the embryo is just beginning to be formed; if warmed to a certain degree, whether by the parent animal, or by art, the fluids which surround that speck in the egg called the punctum vitae, expand, and the little vessels swell and extend themselves; and the motion, or oscillation once began, it develops, by degrees, until it becomes a perfect animal, capable of all the functions common to its kind.

The seed of the vegetable, and the egg of the animal would remain, or rather become effete and inanimate, unless some stimulus, some agent from without, excited or began a motion in them. But what is this agent, or stimulus? For that is the question.—

This stimulus, or animating principle in a natural body, does not depend on its organization, nor its figure, nor any of those inferior forms, which make up the system of its visible [Page 8] qualities; but it is the power, which not being that organiza­tion, nor that figure, nor those qualities, is yet able to produce, to preserve, and to employ them. It is therefore the power, which departing, the body ceases to live, and the members soon pass into putrefaction and decay.^†

From an attentive observation of animated nature, we discover that life is caused, and continued by something which acts from without; and this something is (as far as we can discover) heat, acting on the seed or egg. I say heat, accord­ing to the common acceptation of the term: but to speak more philosophically, it is that subtil electric fluid, which fills the immense space of the whole Universe, pervades all bodies, and actuates every particle of matter. Heat is only one effect of its motion.

In whatever manner a susceptible or irritable body is operated upon by this exciting power, a certain quantity of it, or a certain energy, is assigned and belongs to every individual system upon the commencement of its living state.^‡

[Page 9] Now, a living animal has, besides those attributes common to all bodies, as solidity, extention and gravity, a peculiar something, which distinguishes it from a dead one; for a muscular fibre will contract, and that not by the power of gravitation, cohesion, chrystallization, magnetism, or che­mical attraction.

[Page 10] That state of an animal fibre in which a contraction, or oscillation, is produced by the influx, or contact of a stimulus, is called irritability, or susceptibility.

That principle in animals, on which sensation, motion, and all the animal powers depend, is called the Vis Vitalis.

[Page 11] By the action of stimuli on the [...], particularly heat, the vis vitalis is excited and preserved when diminished it may be encreased, and when suspended it may be restored.

[Page 12] Within every one of us, there is an innate and active power, which ceases not its work, when sense and appetite are asleep; which without any conscious co-operation of the man himself, carries him from a seed, or embryo, to his destined magnitude. This is strictly speaking the Animal OEconomy, and is as perfect in the brutal Hottentot, as in the brightest genius of human kind.

All this depends on a principle which some call the Vis Actuosa, others the Impetum Faciens. This power is innate, and is that by which man lives; it forms him, it nourishes him, refreshes him, moves him, animates him. By it he feels, he desires, refuses, sleeps and wakes; nevertheless, it is totally different from the Mind: For,

In our bodies is found something of quite a different nature from what has been mentioned; a power of thinking, reflecting, comparing, chusing, and representing to itself past, present, and to come. This power, in relation to its several operations, is termed comprehension, understanding, reason, mind, will, freedom, or collectively, by the single word SOUL.^† But to return to the innate principle of animation in man.

Every body knows that although the child is formed, and lives, and grows, and moves in the womb of its mother, it never breathes there. It receives its animating principle, its [Page 13] heat, motion and life from the mother, by a nerve and artery, which enters at its navel and conveys the blood to the heart of the infant, without ever passing through the lungs. The blood in this case goes directly on through the body of the heart, by an opening called the Foramen Ovale, and from thence to the Aorta, or great Artery, by which it is driven to every part of its body; so that the circulation, nutrition and life, are kept up with the mother, as if they were not two bodies but one. It is remarkable that the fruit of vegetables is, in like manner, nourished, and supported by a slender stalk issuing from the parent stock.

When the child is born it becomes dependent on a new principle for the continuance of its existence. When it passes from its watery habitation into the atmosphere, a new determi­nation takes place; and instead of the umbilical cord from the mother, the common air becomes the main-spring of all its actions and functions. When the child opens it's mouth to cry, down rushes the air and expands the lungs. The blood, which had hitherto passed through the heart, now takes a wider circuit, and the foramen ovale closes forever. The lungs which had till this time been inactive, now first begin their functions, and they cease not their motion as long as life continues.

Hence then, it appears, that next to the expanding power of heat, Respiration, or breathing is the primum mobile in the human machine.

[Page 14] Atmospheric-air contains a certain vivifying spirit, which is necessary to continue the lives of animals, and this, in a gallon of air, is said to be sufficient for one man during the space of a minute, and not much longer. Air that has lost this vivifying spirit, deadens fire, extinguishes flame, and destroys life.^†

It is well known that there is a set of vessels in the lungs, which contain air, and another which contain blood.

The air in the lungs is in constant motion, for either that which is at present contained in the cells, is passing through the wind-pipe into the atmosphere, or a fresh parcel is passing from the external atmosphere through the wind-pipe into those cells. The whole of this compound motion is called Respiration. ^‡

If the air continue at rest in the lungs for many minutes, or if a man continue to respire the same air, or if the breathes air that hath served for the inflammation of fuel, or pure fixable air, or any other vapour, excepting respirable air, he dies^‡

From the organs of respiration, or rather from what may be called the systema spirituale pneumonicum, all the actions of the body, and all the power which it exerts are ultimately derived.

[Page 15] It appears from a train of experiments, that the common air communicates a vivifying something to the blood, when drawn into the lungs, and gives to it a stimulating quality, by which it is fitted to excite the heart to action; and that the chemical quality, which the blood acquires in passing through the lungs, is necessary to keep up the action of the heart, and consequent­ly the health of the animal. For no sooner are the lungs quiescent than the heart ceases to contract, the blood stops, all the intellectual operations cease, sensation and voluntary motion are suspended, and all external signs of life disappear. All which are admirably explained by Dr. Edmund Goodwin. ^†

When the fluids in the human machine are thus at rest, what do we see?—a mere carcase—We see the person dead! But after what manner? Here are all the solids, and all the fluids too. What then is lacking? A gentle oscillation, or motion of the fluids, a circumgyration of the liquors; for let there be by what means soever an oscillation, a concussion, or excitement of the nervous energy, which may impel the fluids to move the lungs and heart, life immediately returns, with the usual circulation of the blood and other fluids, heat, colour, agility, cogitation, and every vital, natural and human action.^‡

[Page 16] If it be asked, what is that vivifying something which through the medium of the atmosphere, gives this oscillation or concussion, and continues life?

I answer; it is a portion of that subtil electric fluid, which fills the immense space of the whole universe, pervades all bodies, and actuates every particle of matter. By it the phaenomena of magnetism, fire, and light are produced; and on it the various and astonishing phaenomena of VEGETATION and ANIMA­TION depend. If it be asked further, what and where is the source of this all powerful agent? I answer, the SUN is the efficient cause of the motions of this fluid, and the various phae­nomena of our system are the effects of these motions.

I am aware that analogical arguments are probable, but not conclusive; and that plausible inferences from well known facts in brutes, have occasioned many errors respecting man. Yet I cannot but believe from what we observe in the resusci­tation of swallows, after lying four months in the bottom of a pond; of snakes frozen stiff as a stick, of flies corked up in a bottle of Madeira in Virginia, and brought to life again in Great-Britain;^‡ I say, I cannot help believing from these [Page 17] and similar facts, that it is possible to restore to life a human being who has been frozen many days. We have well authenticated accounts of not only birds frozen to death (as it is called) but of the human species too, who were even for days, without pulse, breathing, or the least natural heat, and yet resuscitated.^†

In this case, the application of heat should be conducted, says Dr. Goodwin, on the same plan, which nature points out for the hybernating, or torpid animal; that is to say; it should be applied gradually and uniformly. It may be raised to 98 degrees of Farenheit, but not above 100. To blow one's own breath into the lungs of another, is an absurd and per­nicious practice.

The consideration of the facts just related, have led some to conceptions of the Soul which have puzzled them, and created doubts rather unfavourable to the opinions entertained by the majority of christians. "What is the condition (say they) of the soul all this time.—In animal bodies there are only two general conditions life and death; and if by death we understand the privation of life, there can be no inter­mediate state between them, say Dr. Goodwin; for no human art can communicate life to dead matter. Dr. Whytte thinks it is not only probable, but even demonstrable, that the soul does not immediately leave the body upon a total stoppage of [Page 18] the heart's motion, and of the circulation of the blood, i. e. upon what we usually call death, but that it continues for some time at least present with it, and ready to actuate it. He thinks with Gassendi, Dr. H. More, Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. S. Clarke, and some other of the greatest philosophers of the last and present age, that the soul is extended.

The apparently dead carcase, therefore, which has lain three, or four hours under water, is as much alive as a sound hen's-egg;^† they would both putrify and dissolve if let alone; but apply a due and uniform degree of heat to either, and you change the seemingly dead body into a live and active animal.

The union of soul with body, is the most abstruse contem­plation that can exercise the mind of man! How is it that one painful idea alters the course of the blood! Who can ex­plain how the blood in return, carries its irregularities to the mind! What incomprehensible mechanism has subjected the organs to sentiment and thought! What (says Voltaire, is that unknown fluid, which is quicker and more active than light, and flies in the twinkling of an eye, through all the channels of life; produces memory, sorrow or joy, reason or frenzy, recalls with horror what one would wish to forget, and makes of a thinking being, an object of admiration, or a subject of pity and tears!

[Page 19] The intellectual scheme, (says the author of Hermes,) which never forgets DEITY, postpones every thing corporeal to the PRIMARY MENTAL CAUSE. It is here it looks for the origin of intelligible ideas, even of those, which exist in human capacities. For though sensible objects may be the destined medium, to awaken the dormant energies of man's understanding, yet are those energies themselves; no more contained in sense, than the explosion of a cannon in the spark which gave it fire.

This then, like all other sound philosophy, leads us at last, up to the GREAT FIRST CAUSE, the ENS ENTIUM, the SUPREME AUTHOR OF ALL, who is ever to be adored with the most profound reverence by the reasonable part of his creation.^‡

Thus much towards investigating the important subject of Vitality or Animation. The narrow limits of a discourse pre­vent my pursuing the matter further at this time. I pass on to a more general and pleasant theme, the Progress of Humanity. Perhaps we may discover the causes which have produced that spirit of benevolence, which gave birth to this society.

It is very common to praise antient times and condemn our own; yet, if we cast our eyes back on the history of mankind, the view will shock us. Of six and twenty cen­turies, [Page 20] wherein the memory and learning of mankind have been exercised, scarcely six can be culled out as fertile in the sciences, or favourable to humanity!^† On a modest com­putation, the destruction of the human race in building up tyranny by Sesostris, by Semiramis, by Xerxes, by Alexander, the Romans, the Sicilians, by Mithradates, the Goths and Vandals, Crusaders, and by the Spaniards in Mexico and Peru, amount to forty times the number of mankind now on the face of the earth.

The Roman name strikes us with such veneration, that we are apt to include humanity among their virtues. But the most celebrated virtue of the most renowned Roman would pass without much eulogium in this day. The truth is, their natural roughness of temper, their adoration of Victoria, that Deity so dear to the Romans, made them neglect and trample upon their fellow men, whom they scarcely distinguished from brutes. And, when the glory, greatness, strength and learn­ing of that famous people were extinguished, and when their Empire was finally overturned, the cause of humanity was still less regarded.

It was worse, when a northern swarm of Barbarians, the Goths, quitting their inhospitable regions, spread through the more fertile parts of the world, and extinguished the small light of learning which remained.^‡

[Page 21] And when Mahomed and his successors carried their vic­tories, with the rapidity of a torrent over most parts of Asia, Africa, through Persia, Arabia, AEgypt, and Palestine, they compleated the destruction the Goths began.

When the Barbarians embraced christanity, they made it bend to their prejudices, rather than subject their prejudices to it's principles; and from the mixture of christianity with the antient customs of barbarians sprang a discord in manners. From a mixture of the rights of sovereigns with those of the nobility, and of the priesthood, sprang a discord in poli­tics and government. And from a mixture of the Pagans and Mahometans with the Christians, sprang a discord in Reli­gion. Anarchy and confusion were the consequences of so many contrasts:—Europe was one large field of battle, and ignorance and brutal force quenched almost every ray of knowledge, while the noble faculties of the soul were absorbed by fear.^†

The extension of benevolence, keeps exact pace with the extension of knowledge, and the exertions of the one are circumscribed by the limits of the other.

Whenever the PARENT of UNIVERSAL NATURE chuses to make a mighty change in the affairs of men, he seems to effect it by, what we call, mean and humble instruments.

[Page 22] Two seemingly inglorious mechanical discoveries, changed the face of the world more than any conqueror, Sect or Empire ever did. I mean the Mariners Compass, and the Art of Printing. ^† These inventions gradually banished bar­barism, and humanized the world. The antients were ac­quainted with but a very small part of the globe. They called all the northern nations, Scythians, and all the western, Celtae, indiscriminately. They had no knowledge of Africa beyond the nearest part of AEthiopia; nor of Asia beyond the Ganges, and as for our quarter of the world, America, they had not even a tradition about it.^‡

Commerce is a cure for the most destructive prejudices. It has every where diffused a knowledge of the manners of all nations.^‡ The multiplication of books by the are of print­ing, and of drawings and pictures by the art of engraving, produced a radiance of knowledge that made tyranny tremble, and will effectually secure the human race from those horrid shocks of barbarism and tyrranny, that once nearly laid waste the old world. The Mariners Compass then opened the Universe, and Printing displayed it.

At this time, superstition, and an odious ecclesiastical des­potism, received a fatal wound. Astronomical improvements, by discovering worlds besides our own, expanded the hu­man mind. So that when the christian religion began, [Page 23] again, to be taught in its purity, the Universe seemed to extend itself to do it homage. Then did KNOWLEDGE raise weep­ing HUMANITY from the dust, and pointed with her blazing torch the way to happiness and peace! Then did RELI­GION, instead of daggers, wrecks and fetters, wear upon her graceful brow this everlasting motto, ‘My ways, are ways of pleasantness, and all my paths are peace.’

Need I say a word to prove to such an audience as this, that the present prevailing spirit of benevolence is principally owing to the diffusion of a Religion, as much above all others, as Heaven is above the Earth? Let him who doubts, com­pare it with the next best system the world ever possessed. Did not Moses bring famine and other plagues on the AEgyp­tians? Elijah deprived the earth of rain, and destroyed with fire those who opposed him; as did Elisha those who mocked him. Did not David kill and curse those he hated or envied? But the Founder of the Religon of humanity came without judgment, anger, or revenge. All his transactions were for the benefit of man. He allayed the winds which threatned destruction to the mariners; he restored limbs to the lame, sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, clean flesh to the le­prous, a sound mind to the insane, and life to the dead. ^† All his, were works of beneficence, diffusing charity and good­will to men, accompanied too, with a spirit so sublime and friendly, that the human heart, with unbidden veneration, bows down before it.

[Page 24] While we consider this HUMANE SOCIETY as a Stream deriving it's source from that inexhaustible River of Joy, the Ministers of Religion may be considered it's principal guardians. They have been it's chief supporters; and so long as they continue to inculcate the precepts of the Religion of Humanity, with that benevolent, gentle, pious, charitable, tolerating spirit, which so eminently distinguishes those before whom I now speak, they will be regarded among it's brightest ornaments.^‡

Then will CHARITY, that bright constellation of christian virtues, always be present with us; under whose fostering in­fluence, we hope, this yet infant Society, this standing com­mittee of humanity, will extend, so far and wide, it's saluti­ferous effects, that future generations will have reason to com­memorate it's exertions with grateful admiration!