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To
examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death. I
became acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not
sufficient; I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the
human body. In my education my father had taken the greatest
precautions that my mind should be impressed with no supernatural
horrors. I do not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of
superstition or to have feared the apparition of a spirit. Darkness
had no effect upon my fancy, and a churchyard was to me merely the
receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of
beauty and strength, had become food for the worm. Now I was led to
examine the cause and progress of this decay and forced to spend days
and nights in vaults and charnel-houses. My attention was fixed upon
every object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human
feelings. I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I
beheld the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I
saw how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain. I paused,
examining and analysing all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified
in the change from life to death, and death to life, until from the
midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me--a light so
brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with
the immensity of the prospect which it illustrated, I was surprised
that among so many men of genius who had directed their inquiries
towards the same science, that I alone should be reserved to discover
so astonishing a secret.

Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not
more certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is
true. Some miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the
discovery were distinct and probable. After days and nights of
incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of
generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing
animation upon lifeless matter.

The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this discovery
soon gave place to delight and rapture. After so much time spent in
painful labour, to arrive at once at the summit of my desires was the
most gratifying consummation of my toils. But this discovery was so
great and overwhelming that all the steps by which I had been
progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the
result. What had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the
creation of the world was now within my grasp. Not that, like a magic
scene, it all opened upon me at once: the information I had obtained
was of a nature rather to direct my endeavours so soon as I should
point them towards the object of my search than to exhibit that object
already accomplished. I was like the Arabian who had been buried with
the dead and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering and

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