LECTURE I. 23 



from the first-mentioned animal, and put it into a 

 glass by itself on the Sl3d of July, and in a week's 

 time it produced a young one, and since that time 

 produces at the rate before-mentioned, viz. five in 

 a week. Soon after, I sent to a friend well skilled 

 in figures, to desire him to make a computation of 

 the number a single Polype would produce in a 

 y^ear's time, and on the moderate supposition, that, 

 (a week being allowed for every brancher when 

 separated, before it begins to produce,) it be sup- 

 posed afterwards to produce one in three days. 

 But he informs me that there exists no rule by 

 which such computation can be made ; that it is in 

 itself extremely difficult, and that, after all, mis- 

 takes might arise in such a multitude of figures as 

 would be necessary ; but that he went so far as to 

 calculate the number of the second generation, 

 which amounted to more than eleven thousand. 

 What then, says he, must be the amount of the 

 whole 1" 



The objections made at the time of the first dis- 

 covery of the extraordinary power of reproduction 

 in the Polype were chiefly these. If the animal 

 soul or life, said the objectors, be one indivisible 

 essence, all in all, and all in every part, how comcis 

 it in this animal, to endure being divided several 



