25 Ohfervathns on the Iponidsa Hlfpida* 



that by which tlicy turn themfelves on their belly, and fiand 

 up on tlieir hind paws. Thev at length die at the end of 

 fix months: but it appears that their death ought to be 

 afcribed rather to hunger than to the operation to which 

 they have been fubjeirled, fmee thofe on whom it has not 

 been performed die in the fame time if deprived of nourilh- 

 rnent. If the tortoifc in this ftate experiences real pain, were 

 it even very flight, it would certainly not feel the weak im- 

 preffions made on the Ihcll which covers it; for it is well 

 known that a very ftrong impreilion entirely effaces that 

 which is very weak. 



XXX. Tlie facls I have eftabliflied will, no doubt, find 

 many oppofer>. This muft be the cafe. They are furprifing; 

 have even fomething of the marvellous; and tend, in parti- 

 cular, to deftroy errors hitherto confidered as inconteftable 

 truths. 



XXXr. We, however, know that fenfibility is very weak 

 in animals at the time of their birth ; that it is gradually 

 expanded with their organs; and, when come to its highelt 

 degree, it begins to decreafe by infenfible gradations until it 

 is at length entirely extinguilbed, when the animal dies. It 

 is eafy to obferve theie different degrees of fenfibility in ani- 

 mals attacked by difeafes, orfubjetited to experiments of this 

 kind. 



XXXII. I might here add, that no naturalifl. is now igno- 

 rant that the fmali eels which have been the object of my 

 '^biervations, and which are found in different kinds of the 

 g<ill-nut, can pafs infcnfibly from the Rate of death to that 

 oflife; die again, to be afterwards revived, if circumllances 

 admit; and tbat\he number of thefe different rofurredlions 

 i.> {till indeterniined. It is more than twenty-fix years fince 

 j publifued, m different journals, the obfcrvations which con- 

 lirm thefe truths; and I have dcmonftrated, in the mofl: evi- 

 dent manner, that thefe fniall animals may be revived at 

 •pteafure; that they enjoy this fingular faculty as long as 

 xhey are hermaphrodites, but that at the moment when they 

 aiiume a fex they return to the common law, and, when 

 once dead, can no longer be revived. I have even found the 

 means of giving them a fcx at prcafure, and theic means are 

 thofe employed by nature for perpetuating their fpccies'*. 



V. An 



* Thefs u\itlis and fev.tral others are explained and illuftratcd in a 

 %\ork, which J initnd to puhlilh, on the hfe, death, and fenfibility of 

 animals. This work, fcveval fragments of which have been communi- 

 Cited, for more thsn twenty years j^inft, to different learned men in Europe, 

 wi'l be enriched nuh above jco engravings, and v.ill form two large vo- 



> lumes 



