METAMORPHOSES OF MAN 



CHAPTER II. 



METAMORPHOSIS GENERALLY DEFINITIONS. 



All vegetable and animal germs, seeds, buds, 

 bulbs, and eggs, have their origin in a few granules, 

 scarcely visible under the highest magnifying powers, 

 or even in a single vesicle, smaller than the point 

 of the finest needle. Thus commence alike the 

 elephant and the oak, the moss and the earthworm; 

 and such is really the first appearance of what at a 

 later period will become a man. We may conceive of 

 the intermediate stages which exist between these 

 points of departure and arrival, and of the immense 

 field which here presents itself to the observer. 

 Apparently exactly similar at the outset, all kinds of 

 animals and plants must become distinct, and assume 

 their special characters. Each of them, then, will 

 present peculiar facts for research. 



It is to the conquest of this land of wonders that 

 modern Science marched, at first a little hazardously, 

 and as it were groping its way ; then with a firmer 

 and firmer step, till at last it has discovered the 

 general tendencies, if not the absolute laws of develop- 

 ment. To glance retrospectively at this series of 

 facts and ideas, even limiting ourselves to Zoology, 

 would be to step far beyond the bounds that we have 

 fixed; but among the subjects which recent researches 

 have elucidated, there is one — that of metamorphosis — 



