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VESPUTTUSES. Shall we imagine that we have pene- 

 trated into the inferior parts of the continents, because 

 \ve have taken a slight view of some coasts-at a distance ? 

 We will form to ourselves more exalted ideas of nature; 

 we will consider her as one immense whole, and will firmly 

 persuade ourselves that what we discover of her is but 

 the smallest jjart of what she contains. Having been 

 heretofore astonished, we will forbear being so for the 

 time to come, but will continue our observations ; we 

 will amass fresh truths, connect them it' we are able, and 

 be in expectation of evt'ry discovery, because we will 

 continually say, that the known cannot serve as a model 

 for the unknown, and that models have been varied ad 

 infinitum. Cluster-poly puses multiply by dividing them- 

 selves ; who can tell but that there may one time or 

 other be discovered animals, that instead of dividing 

 themselves, may unite together, and join themselves to 

 one another, in order to compose one single animal 1 Or 

 who knows whether the multiplication of such an animal 

 may not have as, an essential condition, the consolidation of 

 several animalcules in a single one] We say that an ani- 

 >nal must have a brain, a heart, arteries, veins, nerves, a 

 stomach, &c. These are the ideas we have deduced 

 from large animals, and we carry them every where 

 with confidence. We act herein like a French tra- 

 veller, who should expect. to find in the Terrce Aus- 

 trales the modes of his own comitry, and that would 

 be greatly chagrined on being disappointed. The 

 sminral kingdom has also its Terra* Austrates > in which 

 probably it is not customary to meet with a braki, a 

 heart, a stomach, &c. Why do we desire that nature 

 should always condescend to form one animal with the 

 elements of another? She might indeed be constrained 

 so to do, did not her fecundity surpass that of our poor 

 conceptions? But the HANI>, which has formed the po- 

 lypus, has demonstrated to us, that IT can, when ne- 

 cessity requires, animali%e matter at a much less expence. 

 IT has descended by almost insensible degrees from those 

 great organized masses we call quadrupeds, to those mi- 

 nute organized bodies we stile insect ; and by gradual 

 and skilfully contrived subtractions, it has at length re* 



