30 THE PHILOSOPHY 



III.— DISSEMINATION and DECAY. 



WE fhall next take an analogical view of the diflemination and 

 decay of the animal and vegetable. 



The pov?er of reproduction Is peculiar to the plant and animal. 

 Each of them is capable of producing beings every way fimilar to 

 the parent. But the modes by which this fingular effect is accom- 

 plifhed, are very different in appearance. It is our prefent purpofe 

 to remove this apparent difference, and to fhow that animals and 

 vegetables multiply their fpecies in a manner extremely analogous. 



Animals have long been divided into viviparous and oviparous. 

 The one clafs produce their young alive, the other lay eggs, which 

 muft be hatched either by the heat of the fun, or by that of the 

 mother. This divifion, though very comprehenfive, is not perfect. 

 Several animals have lately been difcovered which are neither vivi- 

 parous nor oviparous ; and there are animals which unite both thefe 

 modes of multiplication. 



The viviparous clafs comprehends men, quadrupeds, and fome 

 fifhes, reptiles, and infeds. The oviparous includes birds, fome 

 reptiles, and moft of the infed; tribes. But the armed polypus, 

 or hydra of Linnaeus, inftead of being either viviparous or ovi- 

 parous, multiplies its fpecies, as formerly remarked, by fending off 

 fhoots from the body of the parent. 



Another fpecies, called the hell-polypus, or hydra Jleniorea of Lin- 

 naeus, multiplies by fplitting longitudinally. In twenty-four hours, 

 thefe divifions, which adhere to a common pedicle, refplit, and 



form 



