ects of universal action.
But the changes in the parts make no change in the universe; for it is
manifest that the continual alterations, successions, revolutions, and
transmutations of matter, cause no accession or diminution therein, no
more than any letter is added or lost in the alphabet by the endless
combinations and transpositions thereof into so many different words and
languages, for a thing no sooner quits one form than it puts on another,
leaving as it were the theatre in a certain dress, and appearing again
in a new one, which produces a perpetual youthfulness and vigor, without
any decay or decrepitness of the world, as some have falsely imagined,
contrary to reason and experience; the world, with all the parts and
kinds thereof, continuing at all times in the same condition."

*****

"But the species still continue by propagation, notwithstanding the decay
of the individuals, and the death of our bodies is but matter going
to be dressed in some new form; the impressions may vary, but the wax
continues still the same, and indeed death is in effect the very same
thins with our birth; for as to die is only to cease to be what we
formerly were, so to be born is to begin to be something which we were
not before. Considering the numberless successive generations that have
inhabited this globe, returning at death into the common mass of
the same, mixing with all the other parts thereof, and to this, the
incessant river-like flowing and transpiration of matter every
moment from the bodies of men while they live, as well as their daily
nourishment, inspiration of air, and other additions of matter to their
bulk; it seems probable that there is no particle of matter on the whole
earth which has not been a part of man. Nor is this reasoning confined
to our own species, but remains as true of every order of animals or
plants, or any other beings, since they have been all resolved into one
another by ceaseless revolutions, so that nothing is more certain than
that every material Thing is all Things, and that all Things are but
manifestations of one."

In his reply to Wotton, who attacks those "Letters to Serena," Toland
says they were addressed "to a lady, the most accomplished then in the
world." The name of the lady will probably, remain forever a mystery.

In 1718, he published the celebrated work "Nazarenus, or Jewish,
Gentile, and Mahometan Christianity," which caused an immense sensation
at the time it appear