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in a situation which excludes the atmospheric air, or at least the 

 animals from whom they are derived could not exist in such a 

 situation, for want of air. Is it that there are animals who are 

 capable of separating from the remains of others the elements hoth 

 of earth and air which have passed into their organization, when 

 life became informal; or is it that a scanty proportion of air 

 penetrates deep into the earth, and suffices to afford the elements 

 obtained from this source, necessary to such forms of life? This 

 latter solution will be preferred, though it is not free from a con- 

 tradiction, which it is hardly worth while to state. 



12. So far as we are capable of observing, one law appears 

 universal in the translation of life and organic particles, viz. that 

 if the causes of the living state of one animal live again in ano- 

 ther, they live, not according to their own nature, but according 

 to that of the new animal which they help to form, and which pre- 

 serves his identity under any variety of the means of nutrition, 

 provided they are to him means of nutrition; that is, he takes out 

 of them only himself. 



