178 HISTORY OF 



cultly set aright ; the same also obtains in the 

 animal machine. Man, the most complicated ma- 

 chine of all others, whose nerves are more nume- 

 rous, and powers of action more various, is most 

 easily destroyed : he is seen to die under wounds 

 which a quadruped or a bird could easily survive ; 

 and as we descend gradually to the lower ranks, 

 the ruder the composition, the more difficult it is 

 to disarrange it. Some animals live without their 

 limbs, and often are seen to reproduce them ; 

 some are seen to live without their brain for many 

 weeks together ; caterpillars continue to increase 

 and grow large, though all their nobler organs are 

 entirely destroyed within ; some animals continue 

 to exist though cut in two, their nobler parts pre- 

 serving life, while the others perish that were cut 

 away : but the earth-worm, and all the zoophyte 

 tribe, continue to live in separate parts, and one 

 animal, by the means of cutting, is divided into 

 two distinct existences, sometimes into a thousand. 



There is no phenomenon in all natural history 

 more astonishing than this, that man, at pleasure, 

 should have a kind of creative power, and out of 

 one life make two, each completely formed, with 

 all its apparatus and functions ; each with its per- 

 ceptions, and powers of motion and self-preserva- 

 tion; each as complete in all respects as that from 

 which it derived its existence, and equally enjoy- 

 ing the humble gratifications of its nature. 



When Des Cartes first started the opinion, that 

 brutes were machines, the discovery of this sur- 

 prising propagation was unknown, which might, 

 in some measure, have strengthened his fanciful 



