MULTIPLICATION OF LIFE. 399 



of life, that superstition lias had a wide scope for the 

 exercise of its influence ; and through all ages a powerful 

 party of mankind have imagined that the spirit of 

 human curiosity must be checked before it advances to 

 remove the veil from any physiological causes. Hence 

 it is that even at the present day so much that stands 

 between what, in our ignorance, we call the real and the 

 supernatural, remains uninvestigated. Even those men 

 whose mind are sceptical upon any development of the 

 truths of great natural phenomena, who, at all events, 

 will have proof before they admit the evidence, are 

 ready to give credit to the grossest absurdities which 

 may be palmed upon them by ingenious charlatans, 

 where the subject is man and his relations to the 

 spiritual world. 



Man, and the races of animals by which he is sur- 

 rounded, present a very striking group, consider them 

 in whatever light we please. The gradual improvement 

 of organic form, and the consequent increase of sen- 

 sibility, and eventually the development of reason, are 

 the grandest feature of animated creation. 



The conditions as to number even of the various 

 classes are not the least remarkable phenomena of life. 

 In the lowest orders of animals, creatures of imperfect 

 organization, consequently those to whom the condi- 

 tions of pain must be nearly unknown, increase by 

 countless myriads. Of the infusoria and other beings, 

 entire mountains have been formed, although micro- 

 scopes of the highest powers are required to detect an 

 individual. Higher in the scale, even among insects, 

 the same remarkable conditions of increase are observed. 

 Some silkworms lay from 1,000 to 2,000 eggs; the 

 wasp deposits 3,000; the ant from 4,000 to 5,000. 

 The queen bee lays between 5,000 and 6,000 eggs 

 according to Burmeister ; but Kirby and Spence state 

 that in one season the number may amount to 40,000 or 





