15? 



with two tails and without a head? Ilrvw will it be able 

 to live? Do you think that you have htkcn nature at un- 

 awares? You are mistaken. Towards the upper part of ' 

 the polypus, near the ancient lip, there are forming not 

 only a single mouth, but several ; and this polypus, 

 concerning \vhich you enquired a minute ago how it 

 could exist, is now a species of hydra with several heads 

 and mouths, and devours with all these mouths. 



14. What a multitude of physiological truths, that 

 were unknown to us iu the vegetable kingdom, has the 

 crw2-polypus alone unveiled to us? How do -these truths 

 appear as paradoxes, aad yet how evidently are they 

 demonstrated ] Who can doubt now that there exists an 

 animal, a very animal, since it is extremely voracious, 

 whose young grows like branches, and which being cut 

 to pieces and actually minced, regenerates anew in all 

 its parts, and evert in the smallest fragments, that may 

 be grafted by approximation or itioculation, turned in- 

 side outwards like a glove, afterwards cut, turned back 

 and cut again, without ceasing to live, devour, grow,, 

 stud multiply. 



It was not a fit season therefore to m&ke. general rule?,, 

 to arrange nature, establish distributions, form systema- 

 tical orders, and to raise an edifice, which future ages,,, 

 better instructed, will even dread to project, We have 

 scarce any knowledge of the animal, when we would 

 undertake to define it. Because our knowledge is at 

 present in some measure improved, shall we presume to 

 think we thoroughly know it? Polypuses have asto- 

 nished us, because on their first appearance there was 

 uo idea in pur brain analogous to them, and we had 

 taken great pains to discard from it the very possibility 

 f their existence. How many animals are there * that 

 are even more strange than polypuses, and that would 

 confound all our reasonings, could we discover them? 

 t would- be necessary on that occasion to invent a new 

 anguage, in order to describe our observations. Poly- 

 puses are placed on the frontiers of another universe*, 

 that will one time or other have its COLUMBUS'S aod- 

 ft 6 



