in physiology, the recalling to life of animals apparently dead. There are many kinds of insects which may be revivified, after all the powers of animation have been suspended for a considerable time. Common flies, small beetles, spiders, moths, bugs, &c., after being drowned in spirit of wine, and continuing apparently dead for more than a quarter of an hour, have been restored to life merely by being thrown among wood-ashes slightly warm.

While Dr Franklin resided in France, he received from America a quantity of Madeira wine which had been bottled in Virginia. In some of the bottles he found a few dead flies, which he exposed to the warm sun, it being then the month of July; and in less than three hours these apparently dead animals recovered life which had been so long suspended. At first they appeared as if convulsed; they then raised themselves on their legs, walked their eyes with their fore feet, dressed their wings with those behind, and began in a little time to fly about.

But the most extraordinary influence of revivification that we ever heard of, is the following: In the warmer parts of France there is an insect very destructive to rye, which seems to begin its operations at the root of the plant, and gradually to proceed upwards to the ear. If the plant be completely dried while the insect is in the root or stem, the animal is irrecoverably killed; but after it has reached the grain, the case is very different. There have been instances, which are noticed in the Academy of Sciences, of these insects being brought to life in a quarter of an hour, by a little warm water, after the grains, in which they were lodged, had been kept dry for 30 years.

What is the metaphysician to think of these phenomena, or what conclusion is he to draw from them with respect to the mind or sentient principle? If he be a sober man, he will draw no conclusion; and for this very good reason, that of the sentient principle of insects, and indeed of every animal but man, he knows nothing. He is conscious that it is the same individual being, which, in himself, thinks, and wills, and feels; he knows, that part of his thought is not in one place and part of it in another; and therefore he rationally concludes that this thinking being is not matter, whilst experience teaches him that it quits the material system as soon as that system becomes completely unfit to discharge its functions, and that when it has once taken its flight, it cannot be recalled. Experience teaches him, on the other hand, that the sentient principle of these insects does not quit the material system as soon as that system seems unfit for its functions; and hence he ought to infer, that the minds of men and of insects (if we may use such language), though probably both immaterial, are very different substances; and that the bond which unites the material and immaterial parts of an insect, is certainly different from that which unites the mind and body of man. This is the only inference which can be legitimately drawn from these phenomena; and he who makes them the basis of materialism, must have his judgment warped by some passion or prejudice.