26 ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO i. 



First Monas moves, an unconnected point, 

 Plays round the drop without a limb or joint; 

 Then Vibrio waves, with capillary eels, 

 And Vorticella whirls her living wheels; 2QO 



While insect Proteus sports with changeful form 

 Through the bright tide, a globe, a cube, a worm. 

 Last o'er the field the Mite enormous swims, 

 Swells his red heart, and writhes his giant limbs. 



V. " ORGANIC LIFE beneath the shoreless waves 

 Was born and nurs'd in Ocean's pearly caves; 



Beneath the shoreless waves, I. 295. The earth Avas originally 

 covered with water, as appears from some of its highest mountains, 

 consisting of shells cemented together by a solution of part of them, 

 as the limestone rocks of the Alps; Ferber's Travels. It must be 

 therefore concluded, that animal life began beneath the sea. 



Nor is thi unanalogous to what still occurs, as all quadrupeds 

 and mankind in their embryon state are aquatic animals; and thus 

 may be said to resemble gnats and frogs. The fetus in the uterus 

 has an organ called the placenta, the fine extremities of the vessels 

 of which permeate the arteries of the uterus, and the blood of the 

 fetus becomes thus oxygenated from the passing stream of the mater- 

 nal arterial blood ; exactly as is done by the gills of fish from the 

 stream of water, which they occasion to pass through them. 



But the chicken in the egg possesses a kind of aerial respiration, 

 since the extremities of its placental vessels terminate on a membra- 



