560 



HISTORY OF ZOOPHYTES. 



tile that impregnates, being impregnated in 

 turn : few that walk out, but must have ob- 

 served them, with their heads laid against 

 each other, and so strongly attached, that they 

 suffer themselves to be trode upon. 



When the eggs are laid in the earth, which, 

 in about fourteen days, as has been said, are 

 hatched into maturity, the young ones come 

 forth very small, but perfectly formed, and 

 suffer no change during their existence ; how 

 long their life continues is not well known, but 

 it certainly holds for more than two or three 

 seasons. During the winter, they bury them- 

 splves deeper in the earth, and seem in some 

 measure to share the general torpidity of the 

 insect tribe. In spring, they revive with the 

 rest of nature, and on those occasions, a moist 

 or dewy evening brings them forth from their 

 retreats, for the universal purpose of continu- 

 ing their kind. They chiefly live in a light, 

 rich, and fertile soil, moistened by dews or 

 accidental showers, but avoid (hose places 

 where the water is apt to lie on the surface of 

 the earth, or where the clay is too stiff for their 

 easy progression under ground. 



Helpless as they are formed, yet they seem 

 very vigilant in avoiding those animals that 

 chiefly make them their prey; in particular, 

 the mole, who feeds entirely upon them be- 

 neath the surface, and who seldom ventures, 

 from the dimness of its sight, into the open air ; 

 him they avoid, by darting up from the earth 

 the instant they feel the ground move ; and 

 fishermen, who are well acquainted with this, 

 take them in what numbers they choose, by 

 stirring the earth where they expect to find 

 them. They are also driven from their re- 

 treats under ground, by pouring bitterer acrid 

 water thereon, such as that water in which 

 green walnuts have been steeped, or a ley 

 made of pot-ashes. 



Such is the general outline of the history of 

 these reptiles, which, as it should seem, de- 

 grades them no way beneath the rank of other 

 animals of the insect creation: but now we 

 come to a part of their history which proves 

 the imperfection of their organs, from the easi- 

 ness with which these little machines may be 

 damaged and repaired again. It is well 

 known in mechanics, that the finest and most 

 complicated instruments are the most easily 

 put out of order, and the most difficultly set 

 right; the same also obtains in the animal ma- 

 chine. Man, the most complicated machine 

 of all others, whose nerves are more numerous, 

 and powers of action more various, is most 

 rasily 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 en- 

 tirely destroyed within ; some animals continue 

 to exist, though cut in two, their nobler parts 

 preserving life, while the othe.rs 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, some 

 times into a thousand ! 



There is no phenomenon in all natural his- 

 tory 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 perceptions, and powers of mo- 

 tion and self-preservation ; each as complete in 

 all respects as that from which it derived its 

 existence, and equally enjoying the humble 

 gratifications of its nature. 



When Des Cartes first started the opinion, 

 that brutes were machines, the discovery of 

 this surprising propagation was unknown, 

 which might, in some measure, have strength- 

 ened his fanciful theory. What is life in 

 brutes ? he might have said, or where does it 

 reside ? In some we find it so diffused, that 

 every part seems to maintain a vivacious prin- 

 ciple, and the same animal appears possessed 

 of a thousand distinct irrational souls at the 

 same time. But let us not, he would say, 

 give so noble a name to such contemptible 

 powers, but rank the vivifying principle in 

 these with the sap that rises in vegetables, or 

 the moisture that contracts a cord, or the heat 

 that puts water into motion ! Nothing, in fact, 

 deserves (he name of soul, but that which rea- 

 sons, that which understands, and by knowing 

 God, receives the mark of its currency, and 

 is minted with the impression of its great 

 Creator. 



Such might have been the speculations of this 

 philosopher: however, to leave theory, it will be 

 sufficient to say, that we owe the first discovery 

 of this power of reproduction in animals to 

 Mr Trembley, who first observed it in the 

 Polypus, and after him, Spalanzani and others 

 found it taking place in the earth-worm, the 

 sea worm, and several other ill-formed ani- 

 mals of a like kind, which were susceptible 

 of this new mode of propagation. This last 

 philosopher has tried several experiments 

 upon the earth-worm, many of which succeed- 

 ed according to his expectation : every earth- 

 worm, however, did not retain the vivacious 

 principle with the same obstinacy ; some, 

 when cut in two, were entirely destroyed ; 

 others survived only in the nobler part ; and 

 while the head was living, the tail entirely 

 perished, and a new one was seen to bourgeon 



