204 LECTURE V. 



show with how little, and with what various 

 organization life could accomplish its prin- 

 cipal functions of assimilation, formation, 

 and multiplication. Who has seen the 

 multitudinous, distributive, and absorbing 

 vessels, and all the other organization 

 which doubtless exist in the vitreous hu- 

 mour of the eye, than which no glass ever 

 appeared more transparent or more seem- 

 ingly inorganic ? How strange is it, that 

 anatomists, above all others of the mem- 

 bers of the community of science, should 

 hesitate to admit the existence of what they 

 cannot discern, since they, more than all 

 the rest, have such constant assurance of 

 the imperfection and fallibility of sight? 



Amongst the zoophytes. Professor Cuvier 

 says, that in medusse and similar animals, 

 vessels arise from their digestive cavities, 

 which do not return, but exhaust their 

 contents in deposition, effusion, and tran- 

 spiration. It is ascertained that Mr. Hun- 

 ter injected the vessels of medusae from the 

 digestive cavity, in some of the specimens 

 preserved in the Museum in the year 1 779, 



