BAT A VI A. 231 
In Java every object seems to be impregnated with life. 
A glass of water taken out of the canal of Batavia becomes, 
in the course of a few hours, a mass of animated matter, the 
minute portions of which, multiplying by di\'ision and sub- 
division, move about with astonishing rapidity. The bay, 
swarming with myriads of living creatures, exhibits, in the 
night time, a phosphorescent light like a sheet of fire. The 
stream of fresh water which falls into it, being more highly 
charged with animal life, is distinctly traced in the bay by a 
train more luminous and brilliant than the rest of the surface, 
appearing like another milky way in the midst of a firma- 
ment of stars. 
"Whether the Hindoos framed the strange doctrine of trans- 
migration of the vital principle into different anirhals, or bor- 
rowed it from other countries where animal life was less 
abundant, and therefore of more value, than in India, their 
absurdities are, in either case, fully as defensible as those 
of some of our modern philosophers who, in a glare of fine 
phrases, have assiduously endeavoured to propagate the un- 
founded doctrine of a fortuitous and spontaneous vivification 
of inanimate matter. If, in any single instance, it could be 
shewn that animal life had been produced under a fortuitous 
concurrence of favourable circumstances, one would be the 
less surprized at the adoption of such preposterous notions as 
" faculties being obtained simply by wishing for them" — that 
" from organic particles accumulated, originate animal ap- 
" petencies" — that 
' " Hence without parent, by spontaneous birth, 
" Rise the first specks of animated earth." 
