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CHAPTER IV. 



EXAMINATION OF THE PROCESS OP REPRODUCTION 

 IN ANIMALS AND PLANTS AND CONSEQUENT SPE- 

 CULATIONS. 



Sect. 1 The Examination of the Process of 

 Reproduction in Animals. 



IT would not, perhaps, be necessary to give any 

 more examples of what has hitherto been the 

 general process of investigations on each branch of 

 physiology; or to illustrate further the combina- 

 tion which such researches present, of certain with 

 uncertain knowledge; of solid discoveries of organs 

 and processes, succeeded by indefinite and doubtful 

 speculations concerning vital forces. But the re- 

 production of organized beings is not only a subject 

 of so much interest as to require some notice, but 

 also offers to us laws and principles which include 

 both the vegetable and the animal kingdom ; and 

 which, therefore, are requisite to render intelligible 

 the most general views to which we can attain^ 

 respecting the world of organization. 



The facts and laws of reproduction were first 

 studied in detail in animals. The subject appears 

 to have attracted the attention of some of the phi- 

 losophers of antiquity in an extraordinary degree ; 

 and indeed we may easily imagine that they hoped, 



