STUDY IX, 229 



adapted to them on coming into the world ; and 

 if they are oviparous in Autumn, it is becaufe the 

 pofterity of creatures fo dehcate could not have 

 furvived the Winter, without having been fliut up 

 in eggs. For fimilar reafons, if you tear off a claw 

 from a live crab or lobfter, it puQies out another, 

 which fprings out of it's body, as a branch out of 

 a tree. Not that this animal re-prod uftion is the 

 effed: of any mechanical analogy between the two 

 kingdoms : but thofe animals being deftined to 

 live on the ihores, among the rocks, where they 

 are expofed to the agitation of the waves, Nature 

 has beftowed on them the faculty of re-producing 

 the limbs expofed to be bruifed, or broken off, by 

 the rolling about of rocky fubftances, as ihe has 

 given to vegetables, which grow by the waters, the 

 power of re-produâ:ion by (hoots, becaufe they 

 are expofed to the danger of being overwhelmed 

 by inundations. 



Medicine has deduced a multitude of errors 

 from thofe apparent analogies of the vegetable and 

 animal kingdoms. It is fufficient to examine the 

 train of her ftudies, to be fatisfied that they are 

 liable to ftrong fufpicions. She purfues the ope- 

 rations of the foul through the flruélure of a 

 corpfe, and the functions of life in the lethargy of 

 death. If (lie happens to perceive fome valuable 

 property in a vegetable, (lie exalts it into an uni- 



CL 3 verfal 



