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duced animality to her smallest terms. We are unac- 

 quainted with these smallest terms. The polypus, 

 simple as it appears to be, is without doubt very much 

 compounded, in comparison of such animals as are 

 placed beneath it in the scale. It is, if we may be al- 

 lowed the expression, too much an animal, to be the 

 last term of animality. We know that the brain is the 

 principle of the nerves, that it filtres the spirits ; that the 

 nerves are the organ of feeling ; that the heart is the 

 primum mobile of circulation ; that the veins and ar- 

 teries are the dependencies, all this we have seen in 

 great animals, we have again to our surprise found it in 

 insects: though under different forms: we were thus ac- 

 customed to regard these various organs, and some 

 others, as essential to the animal. The polypus, how- 

 ever, exhibits to us nothing similar ; the best miscro- 

 scopes only discover to us an infinite number of small 

 disseminated seeds in its whole substance ; and the un- 

 foreseen experiment of its shifting, sufficiently proves 

 that there is nothing in its structure common to that of 

 animals before known to us. Were we not capable of 

 imagining, that an animal had been endued with the pro- 

 perty of being propagated and grafted like a plant, it 

 would have been much less possible for us to suspect that 

 there had been granted to it tire power of being turned 

 inside-out like a glove. The arm-polypus, is neverthe- 

 less a perfect animal ; its voracity is excessive ; it devours 

 all the little insects that liappen to touch if, and seizes 

 them with such skill, as seems to give it an affinity to 

 hunting animals. The cluster-polypus, quite differently 

 constructed, has not the saiue advantages, but has rela- 

 tive ones: it can excite a rapid motion in the water 

 which brings towards it those living corpuscles it feeds 

 upon. There are undoubtedly many animals that are 

 still much more disguised than the cluster -polypus, and 

 by not affording us any exterior sign of animality, leave 

 us fora long time uncertain of their true nature. When 

 a lull of such a polypus is detached from it and fixes 

 it b\ its short pedicle to any support, should we be apt 

 to consider it as an animal production : has not the gall- 

 insect been takeu for a real vegetable gall-nut by suck 



