ZOOPHYTES. 227 



ASCIDIAN ZOOPHYTES. 



Our attention has been hitherto directed principally to those Zoo- 

 phytes whereof the living tenant, if not to be absolutely identified with 

 the structure and habits of the hydrse of the fresh-waters, or with that 

 above described of the sea, certainly offers many essential points of corre- 

 spondence. 



There are some other products equally meriting commentary, whose 

 animals, more elevated in the zoological scale, exhibit an organic frame of 

 greater apparent importance and complication, as if to discharge certain 



higher functions. 



But it cannot be affirmed that superior benefit is derived from the 

 multiplication and arrangement of such organic structure, or that functions 

 of greater utility are performed, than what are effected amidst the simpli- 

 city of humbler beings. The vital principle is neither stronger, nor is it 

 of longer endurance ; it is not less the subject of casualties ; the perpetua- 

 tion of the race is not less dependent on the circumstances wherein they 

 are placed; while the portion occupied by the others of simplest form to 

 our apprehension, is uninterrupted in the distribution of the animated 



universe. 



Human comparisons of perfection, therefore, are rather relative than 

 positive. None but the Creatoe can judge justly of the degree of per- 

 fection allotted to his creatures. 



Scientific observers having devoted themselves to investigation of a 

 rude and shapeless animal product, the Ascidia, generally more like a 

 lump of inanimate matter, than a being endowed with vitality, they there 

 found a most curious and interesting internal organization, veiled by the 

 coarsest exterior. Now was a structure revealed, elevating this rude mis- 



