60 On the Vitality of Matter. 
- -HI.’d inquiry, Whether inert particles of matter spring to 
itfe in forms and natures remote from, and opposite to, 
their own previous state of existence ? 
It is imagined that myriads of monads congregate upon a 
hair immersed in water; that having in itself a vital princi- 
ple, it assimilates with these extraneous visitants, and they 
with each other, until this admixture of fortuitous materials 
becomes a living being; that gradually “ a complete animal 
is developed, the root of the hair assuming the shape and 
character of the head, with eyes and mouth.” — It is not diffi- 
cult to conceive that a hair, by being placed in water, an 
element where millions of ephemera occasionally reside, 
should be covered with as to! 
and that from its elasticity their motions should impart sinu- 
osity through its whole length, and that it should be found 
writhing and turning like an organized, animated being, al- 
though no more endowe in 
d with animal life than the limb of a 
a Water serpent. ir 
ce snakes, another may ; and, if snakes, 
metamorphosis of the gord ius aquaticus, The. as 
wee * parallel one. The butterfly preserves its identity 
