GENERATION OF ANIMALS, 269 



cover fmaller eels ifluing in great numbers out 

 of their bodies. The body of this animal feems 

 to be only a fheath or fac containing a multitude 

 of fmaller animals, which perhaps are other 

 iheaths of the fame kind, in which the organic 

 matter is aflimilated into the form of eels. 



A great number of experiments would ftill 

 be neceffary to diftinguifh thefe animals, ^hich 

 are fo fingular and fo little underftood, intoclaffes 

 and genera. Some of them may be regarded as 

 real zoophytes, which enjoy a kind of vegeta- 

 tion, and which, at the fame time, feem to wreath 

 and move like animals. Others appear, at firft, 

 to be animals, and then join and form a fpecies 

 of vegetables. A fmall attention to the re(blu- 

 tion of a fingle grain of corn will elucidate, at 

 leaft in part, what 1 have faid on this fubjedt. I 

 might add other examples ; but thofe 1 have gi- 

 ven were only produced for the purpofe of ex- 

 hibiting the varieties of generation. There are 

 unqueftionably feveral organized bodies which 

 we confider as real animals, but which are not 

 engendered by others of the fame fpecies. Some 

 of them arc only a kind of machines ; and fome 

 of thefe machines have a certain limited effect, 

 and ad; for a certain time only, as the machines 

 in the milt of the calmar ; others may be made 

 to ad as long and as often as we pleafe, as thofe 

 of blighted grain. There are vegetables which 

 produce animated bodies, as the filaments of the 

 human femen, from which adtive globules ifllie 



and 



