ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 



95 



themselves. * * Particles of matter fitted by digestion, 

 and their transmission through a living body for immedi- 

 ate assimilation with it, or flakes of lymph detached from 

 surfaces already organized, seem neither to exceed nor 

 fall below that simplicity of structure which favors this 

 wonderful development; and the supposition that, like 

 morsels of a planaria, they may also, when retained in 

 contact with living parts, and in other favorable circum- 

 stances, continue to live and be gradually changed into 

 creatures of analogous conformation, is surely not so ab- 

 surd as to be brought into comparison with the Metamor- 

 phoses of Ovid. * * We think the hypothesis is also 

 supported in some degree by the fact, that the origin of 

 the eutozoa is favored by all causes which tend to disturb 

 the equality between the secerning and absorbent sys- 

 tems."* Here particles of organized matter are suggest- 

 ed as the germinal origin of distinct and fully organized 

 animals, many of which have* a highly developed repro- 

 ductive system. How near such particles must be to the 

 inorganic form of matter may be judged from what has 

 been said within the last few pages. If, then, this view 

 of the production of entozoa be received, it must be held 

 as in no small degree favorable to the general doctrine 

 of an organic creation by law. 



There is another series of facts, akin to the above, and 

 which deserves not less attention. The pig, in its domes- 

 tic state, is subject to the attacks of a hydatid, from which 

 the wild animal is free ; hence the disease called measles 

 in pork. The domestication of the pig is of course an 

 event subsequent to the origin of man ; indeed, compara- 

 tively speaking a recent event. Whence, then, the first 

 progenitor of this hydatid ? So also there is a tinea which 

 attacks dressed wool, but never touches it in its unwashed 

 state. A particular insect disdains all food but chocolate, 

 and the larva of the oinopota cellaris lives nowhere but 

 in wine and beer, all of these being articles manufactured 

 by man. There is likewise a creature called the pyme- 

 lodcs cyclopum, which is only found in subterranean cavi- 

 ties connected with certain specimens of the volcanic for- 

 mation in South America, dating from a time posterior 

 to the arrangements of the earth for our species. Whence 

 the first pymelodes cyclopum ? Will it, to a geologist, 

 appear irrational to suppose that, just as the pterodactyle 



* Article "Zoophytes," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 7th edition. 



