Chapter 7

[BC]See Shaw's Travels, vol. II. page 185, and 186.

The great rivers of America, and even those which have been but lately discovered, have suffered great alterations at their mouths. Charlevoix, speaking of the river Mississipi, says, that at its mouth, below New Orleans, the country forms a point of land which does not appear to be very ancient, for by digging but a little into the earth water is met with; besides, the quantity of small islands whichhave recently been formed at all the mouths of this river, leaves no doubt of this neck of land being formed after the same manner. It appears certain, says he, that when M. de la Salle went down the Mississipi, to the sea, the mouth of this river was not as it is at this present time.

"The nearer we approach towards the sea, adds he, the more it becomes perceptible, the bar has scarcely any water in most of the small outlets which the river has opened, and which have multiplied so greatly from the trees that are carried along with the currents, one of which stopt in a part where it is shallow, will entangle hundreds. I have seen, continues he, 200 leagues from New Orleans, collections of trees, one of which would have filled all the timber-yards of Paris. Nothing can set them free; the mud which the river brings down serves to cement, and, by degrees, covers them. Each inundation leaves a new stratum, and, after 10 years, shrubs and vegetables grow thereon: after this manner most points and islands are formed, which so often change the course of rivers."[BD]

[BD]See Charlevoix Travels, vol. II. page 440.

Nevertheless all the changes which rivers cause are very slow, and become not considerable till after a long series of years: but quick and sudden changes have happened by inundations and earthquakes. The ancient Egyptian priests, 600 years before the birth of Christ, asserted, according to the Timæus of Plato, that there was a great island near Hercules Pillars; calledAtlantis, which was larger than Lybia and Asia taken together; and that this island was buried under the waters of the ocean after a great earthquake. "Traditur Atheniensis civitas restitisse olim innumeris hostium copiis quæ, ex Atlantico mari profectæ, prope cunctam Europam Asiamque obsederunt; tunc enim fretum illud navigabile habens in ore et quasi vestibulo ejus insulam quam Herculis columnas cognominant; ferturque insula illa Lybiâ simul et Asiâ Major fuisse, per quam ad alias proximas insulas patebat aditus, atque ex insulis ad omnem continentem è conspectu jacentem vero mari vicinam: sed intrà os ipsum portes augusto sinu traditur, pelagus illud verum mare, terra quoque illa verè erat continens, &c. Post hæc ingenti terræ motu jugique diei unius etnoctis illuvione factum est, ut terra dehiscens omnis illos bellicosos absorberet, et Atlantis insula sub vasto gurgite mergeretur."Plato in Timæus.This ancient tradition is not absolutely contrary to all probability. The earths which were absorbed by the waters are perhaps those which join Ireland to the Azores, and those to the continent of America; for in Ireland there are the same fossils, shells, and marine productions as in America, some of which are different from any found in other parts of Europe,

Eusebius relates two testimonies on the subject of deluges: one of which is Melo, who says that the plains of Syria had formerly been laid under water; the other is Abydenus, who says, that in the time of King Sisithrus there was a great deluge, which had been predicted by Saturnus, PlutarchDe Solestia Animalium. Ovid, and other mythologists, speak of the deluge of Deucalion, which, according to them, was in Thessaly, about 700 years from the universal deluge. It is also asserted that there had been one more ancient in Attica, in the time of Ogiges, about 230 years before that of Deucalion.

In the year 1095 there was a deluge in Syria, which drowned a number of people.[BE]In 1164 there was so considerable a one in Friezeland, that all maritime coasts were covered, and several thousands of the inhabitants drowned.[BF]In 1218 there was another inundation which destroyed near an hundred thousand people. There are a multitude of other examples of great inundations, like that of 1604 in England, and many more.

[BE]See Alsted. Chron. chap. 25.

[BF]See Krank, Lib. 5, cap. 4.

A third cause of the change on the surface of the globe, are impetuous winds. They not only form downs and hills on the sea shores, but they often stop and choak up rivers, and change their directions; they tear up cultivated land, destroy trees, overthrow edifices, and cover entire countries with sand. We have an example of these inundations of sand on the coasts of Britany in France: the history of the Royal Academy at Paris, anno 1722, makes mention of it in the following terms.

"In the environs of St. Paul de Leon, in Lower Britany, there is a quarter near the sea, which before the year 1666, was inhabited; but is so no longer, by reason of a sand whichcovers it to the height of more than twenty feet, and which gains ground every year. Reckoning from that time it has proceeded upwards of six leagues into the country, and is now not more than about half a league from St. Paul, so that according to all appearance that town must soon be deserted. The tops of some steeples and chimnies are still seen peeping out of this sea of sand; the inhabitants of the interred villages have always had sufficient time to quit their houses in safety.

"An east or north wind increases this calamity, by raising up a sand of a very fine nature, which sweeps it away in such great quantities, and with such velocity, that M. Deslandes, to whom the academy are indebted for this observation, when walking in that country during an east wind, was obliged, from time to time, to wipe it off his hat and cloaths they were so loaded with sand, and felt so heavy. Besides, when this wind is violent, it throws this sand over a small arm of the sea into Roscof, a small port much frequented by foreign vessels; the sand collects in their streets to the height of two feet, and the inhabitants are obliged to have it carted away. There aremany ferruginous particles in this sand, which are easily discovered by a magnet.

"The coast which furnishes this sand extends from St. Paul as far as Plouefoat, somewhat more than four leagues. The disposition of the place is such that only the east or the north-east wind can convey the sand over the lands. It is easy to be conceived how the sand, conveyed and accumulated by the wind in one part, can again be taken up by the same wind and carried farther, and that the sand can thus advance into and cover the country while the mine which furnishes it continues unexhausted; for without this the sand, by advancing, would always diminish in height, and would cease its destructive ravages. Now it is but too possible that the sea throws up or deposits new sand in the place from whence the wind raises it up, and therefore the dreadful effects may long continue.

"The disaster is but of modern date, possibly the shoal which furnishes it has not yet a sufficient quantity to lift itself above the surface of the sea, or perhaps the sea has but just left it uncovered. There has been some alteration on the coast, and the sea at presentreaches, at high water, half a league beyond certain rocks that formerly it never passed.

"This unhappy province justifies what the ancient and modern travellers relate concerning the tempests of sand in the deserts of Arabia, in which cities and armies have been enveloped and destroyed."

Mr. Shaw tells us that the ports of Laodicea, Jebila, Tortosa, Rowada, Tripoli, Tyre, Acra, and Jaffa, are all filled up with sand brought thither by the great waves which beat on that side of the Mediterranean when the west wind blows impetuously.[BG]

[BG]See Shaw's Travels, vol. II.

It is useless to give a greater number of examples of the alterations that have happened on the surface of the globe. Fire, air, and water, produce continual changes, which become very considerable by time. It is not from general causes alone, whose effects are periodical and regular, that the sea successively takes the place of the earth, and forsakes its own dominions. There are a number of particular causes which contribute to these mutations, such as earthquakes, inundations, sinking of mountains, &c. Thus the most solid thing,at least to our conception, like the rest of nature, undergoes continual and perpetual vicissitudes.

CONCLUSION

OF THE

THEORY OF THE EARTH.

By the proofs we have given in ArticlesVII.andVIII.it appears certain that the whole of the present dry land was formerly covered by the sea. It appears also as certain, from ArticleXII.that the flux and reflux, and other motions of the ocean, continually detach, from the side and the bottom of the sea, shellsand matters of every kind, some part of which are deposited in other places in form of sediments, and which are the origin of the parallel and horizontal strata every where to be met with. We have proved in ArticleIX.that the inequalities of the globe have been caused by the motion of the sea, and that mountains have been produced by the successive masses and heapings of the sediments we have just described. It is evident by ArticleXIII.that the currents, which at first followed the direction of these inequalities, afterwards gave to them all the figure which they at present preserve; that is, that alternate correspondence of the saliant angles always opposed to the returning angles. It appears likewise by ArticlesVIII.andXVIII.that the greatest part of the matters which the sea has detached from its sides and bottom were, when deposited as sediments, in form of a fine impalpable powder, which perfectly filled the cavities of the shells, whether it was of the same nature or only analogous to that with which they were composed. It is certain, from ArticleXVII.that the horizontal strata which have been produced by the accumulation of sediments, and which at first werein a soft state, acquired hardness in proportion as they became dry, and that this drying has produced perpendicular clefts, which cross the horizontal strata.

It is impossible to doubt, after perusing the facts in the ArticlesX.XI.XIV.XV.XVI.XVII.XVIII.andXIX.that an infinite number of revolutions, particular changes and alterations, have happened on the surface of the globe, as well from the natural motion of the waters of the sea as by the effects of rain, frost, running waters, winds, subterraneous fires, earthquakes, inundations, &c. and that consequently the sea has alternately changed places with the earth, especially in the earliest times after the creation, when the terrestrial matters were much softer than they are at present. It must nevertheless be acknowledged, that we can but very, imperfectly judge of the succession of natural revolutions; that we can still less judge of the cause of accidents, changes, and alterations; that the defect of historical monuments deprives us of the knowledge of particular facts, and experience and time is deficient to us. We do not pay any consideration that, though the time of our existence is very limited, natureproceeds in her regular course. We would condense into our momentary existence the transactions of ages past and to come, without reflecting that this instant of time, nay even human life itself, is only a single fact in the history of the acts of the Almighty.

HISTORY OF ANIMALS.

CHAPTER I.

A COMPARISON BETWEEN ANIMALS, VEGETABLES, AND OTHER PRODUCTIONS OF NATURE.

Amidst the infinite number of objects that offer themselves to our view, and with which the surface of the earth is every where covered, Animals hold the first rank both on account of their formation, and their evident superiority over vegetables and other matters. Animals, by their senses, form, motion, and many other properties, have a more intimate connection with those things which surround them than vegetables; and the latter, by their figure, growth, and variety of component parts, have also a nearer relation with externalobjects, than either minerals or stones, which have not any kind of life or motion. By this number of properties it is, that the animal claims pre-eminence over the vegetable, and the vegetable over the mineral. Man, to consider him by his material form alone, is only superior to the brute creation by possessing some few peculiar properties, such as those given to him by his tongue and hands; and although the works of the Creator are in themselves equally perfect, the animal, according to our mode of perception, is the most complete, and man the most perfect animal.

What variety of springs, what forces, and what mechanical motions are enclosed in this small part of matter which composes the body of an animal? What properties, what harmony, and what correspondence between the various parts? How many combinations, arrangements, causes, effects, and principles, conspire to complete one end, and which we know only to be results so very difficult to comprehend, that they only cease from being marvellous by the long custom of not reflecting on them?

Nevertheless, however admirable this work appears, it is not the individual that is the mostwonderful; but it is in the succession, reproduction, and duration of species, that nature becomes inconceivable. This faculty of reproduction, which resides alone in animals and vegetables; this kind of unity always subsisting, and seemingly eternal; this procreative power, which perpetually exercises itself without being destroyed, is a mystery, the depth of which we are not enabled to fathom.

Inanimate bodies, even the stones and dirt under our feet, have some properties; their existence alone supposes a great number; and the least organic matter has an infinity of relations with the other parts of the universe. We shall not say, with some philosophers, that matter, under whatever form it may be, is sensible of its existence and relative faculties. This is a metaphysical question, and of which we do not here propose to treat, it will be sufficient to observe, that not having a perfect knowledge of our own relation with external objects, we cannot doubt that inanimate matters are still more ignorant; besides, as our sensations do not in the least resemble the objects which cause them, we must conclude, by analogy, that inanimate matter has neither sentiment, sensation, nor a consciousness of its existence; to attribute anyof these faculties to it, would be giving it the power of thought, action, and perception, nearly in the same manner as we think, act, and feel, which is as much repugnant to reason as it is to religion.

Inanimate bodies being formed of earth and dust, we have, of course, some properties in common with them, but they are merely relative to what arises from general matter, such as extent, impenetrability, weight, &c. but as these properties, purely material, make no impression of themselves, as they exist entirely independent, and do not at all affect us, we cannot consider them as a part of our being; it is therefore the organization, the soul, and the life, which constitute our existence. Matter, considered in this light, is less the principal than the accessor. It is a foreign expansion, the union of which is unknown, and the presence hurtful to us; and thought, which is the constituent principle of our being, is very probably entirely independent.

We exist, therefore, without knowing how, and we think without knowing why; but whatever is the manner of our being or thinking, whether our sensations are true or false, the result of them are not less certain. Thisorder of ideas, this train of thoughts, which internally exist from ourselves, although very different from the objects that cause them, give rise to the most real affections, and occasion relations with external objects, which we may consider as real affinities, since they are invariable, and always the same. The human species, therefore, may be said to hold the first rank in the order of nature, the brute creation the second, vegetables the third, and minerals the last; for although we cannot clearly distinguish between our animal and spiritual qualities, and although the brute creation are endowed with the same senses, possess the same principles of life and motion, and perform a number of actions like man, yet they have not the relation with external objects in the same extensive manner we have, and consequently the resemblance must fail in various respects. The distance is greater between man and vegetables, and still more so from minerals, as vegetables possess a degree of animation, while minerals are destitute of every principle that tends to organization.

To compose, therefore, the history of an animal, we must first nicely inspect into the general order of his particular relations, andafterwards distinguish those he has in common with vegetables and minerals. An animal has nothing in common with a mineral, excepting general properties of matter; his nature and œconomy are totally different: the mineral is a mere senseless and inactive matter, without organization, faculties, or power of reproduction; a dead mass, fit only to be trod under foot by man and animals; even the most precious metals are thus considered by the philosopher, as they possess but an arbitrary value, subordinate to the will, and dependent on the convention of men.

In an animal all the powers of nature are united; the properties by which it is animated are peculiar to it; by its senses it can will, act, determine, and communicate with the most distant objects: its body is a centre, to which every thing is connected; a point where the whole universe is reflected; a world in miniature. These are the properties which peculiarly belong to it; those which it possesses in common with vegetables are the faculties of growth, expansion, reproduction, and increase.

The most apparent difference between animals and vegetables seems to be the faculty of moving from place to place, which animalsare endowed with and vegetables not. It is true we are not acquainted with any vegetable that has a single progressive motion; and there are many kinds of animals, as oysters, &c. to which this motion seems to have been denied; the distinction, therefore, is neither general nor necessary.

A more essential difference might be drawn from the faculty of sensation; but sensation includes such a variety of ideas, that we ought not to mention the word without giving some explication; for if by sensation we understand only a motion, occasioned by a check or resistance, we shall find thesensitive-plant is also possessed of it; if, on the contrary, we would have it signify to apprehend and compare ideas, we are not certain that brute animals possess it; if it is allowed to dogs, elephants, &c. whose actions seem to result from the same causes as those of men, it must be denied to an infinite number of others, especially to those which seem to be motionless. If we could give to oysters, for example, the same faculty of sensation as to dogs, though in an inferior degree, why should we not allow it to vegetables in a still lesser degree? This differencebetween animals and vegetables is not, therefore, general, nor well decided.

A third difference seems to arise from their method of feeding. Animals, by the means of certain external organs, seize those things which are agreeable to them: they seek their pasture and chuse their food. Plants are reduced to the necessity of receiving such nutriment as the earth furnishes: they have no diversity in the manner of procuring it; no choice in the kind, but the humidity of the earth is their only aliment; nevertheless, if we attend to the organization and action of roots and leaves, we shall presently discover that there are in those parts external organs, which vegetables make use of to obtain their food; that the root avoids and turns from an obstacle, or vein of bad earth, to seek for one that is better; that they divide their fibres, and even go so far as to change their form to procure nutriment for the plant. The difference between animals and vegetables cannot, therefore, be established on the manner in which they receive their nutriment.

This investigation induces us to conclude that there is no absolute essential and generaldifference between animals and vegetables, but that nature descends, by degrees imperceptibly from an animal which is the most perfect, to that which is the least, and from the latter to the vegetable. The water polypus may therefore be considered as the line where the animal creation ends and that of plants begin.

If, after having examined the distinctions, we search after the resemblances between animals and vegetables, we shall find the power of reproduction is general, and very essential to both; a faculty which would almost lead us to suppose that animals and vegetables are nearly of the same order of beings.

A second resemblance may be drawn from the expansion of their parts, a property which is common to both; for vegetables grow as well as animals, and if the manner in which they expand is different, it is not totally nor essentially so, since there are very considerable parts in animals, as the bones, the hair, the nails, the horns, &c. whose expansion is a perfect and real vegetation; and the fœtus, at its first formation, may be said rather to vegetate than live.

A third resemblance arises from there being some animals which propagate like plants, andby the same method. The multiplication of the vine-fretter, which is made without copulation, is like that of plants by seeds; and that of polypuses, by cutting them, resembles the multiplication of trees by slips.

We can then assert with greater foundation, that animals and vegetables are beings of the same order, and that nature passes from one to the other by insensible links; since the properties wherein they resemble each other are general and essential, and those on which they differ confined and particular.

If we compare animals and vegetables by other lights, for example, by number, situation, size, form, &c. we shall draw fresh inductions from them.

The number of the animal species is much greater than that of plants. In the class of insects alone there are a greater number of species than there are kinds of plants on the surface of the earth. Animals likewise much less resemble each other than plants; and it is this resemblance among the latter which makes the difficulty of knowing and discerning them, and has given rise to so many botanical systems; and it is for this reason that more labour has been bestowed on that than on zoology.

Besides, there is another advantage of knowing the species of animals, and distinguishing them one from another, which is by regarding those as one and the same species, who, by means of copulation, produce and perpetuate beings like themselves; and as a different species, those from a connection between whom nothing is produced, or whose product are unlike their parents. Thus a fox will be a different species from a dog, if nothing results from a copulation of a male and female of these two animals, and when even there should result a bipartite animal, or a kind of mule, which cannot generate, that will be sufficient to establish the fox and dog of two different species. There is not the same advantage to be had in plants, for although some have pretended to discover sexes, and although divisions of breeds have been established by the parts of fecundation; yet, as these distinctions neither are so certain, nor so apparent as in animals, and the production of plants is made in many modes, that the sex has no part in, and where the parts of fecundation are not necessary, this idea cannot be made use of with any success; it is only on a misapprehended analogy that this sexual method hasbeen pretended to distinguish all the different species of plants.

Notwithstanding the number of animals is greater than that of plants, yet that is not the case with respect to the number of individuals in each species. In animals as well as in plants, the number of individuals is much greater in the small species than in the large. Flies are, perhaps, a million times more numerous than elephants; so likewise there are more kinds of plants than trees; but, if we compare the quantity of individuals in each species, we shall find that the plant is more abundant than the animal; for example, quadrupeds bring forth but a small number of young, and at considerable distances of time; trees, on the contrary, produce every year, a great quantity. It may be said that this comparison is not exact, and to render it so, we should compare the quantity of seeds produced by a tree, with a quantity of germs contained in the semen of an animal, and then, perhaps, we should find, that animals are still more abundant in their seed than vegetables. But it should be considered that it is possible by collecting and sowing all the seeds of an elm, for instance, that we might have 100,000 youngones from the product of a single year; and that should we supply a horse with as many mares as he could cover in one year, there would be a great difference between the production of the animal and that of the vegetable. I shall not examine into the quantity of germs; first, because we are not acquainted with it in the animal creation: and secondly, because possibly there is the same number of seminal shoots in the vegetable: for the seed of a vegetable is not a germ, being as perfect a production as the fœtus of an animal, and to which, like that, a greater expansion is only wanting.

To my comparison may likewise be opposed the prodigious multiplication of certain kinds of insects: as the bee in particular, one of which will produce thirty or forty thousand. But it must be observed, that I speak in general of animals compared with vegetables; and besides, this example of bees, which perhaps is the greatest multiplication among animals, does not constitute a proof against what we have observed; for of thirty or forty thousand flies produced by the female bee, there is but few females; fifteen hundred, or two thousand males, and all the rest moles, or ratherneutral flies, without sex, and incapable of procreating.

It must be owned, that in insects, fish, and shell-fish, there are species which seem to be very abundant; oysters, herrings, fleas, beetles, &c. are perhaps in as great numbers as mosses and the most common plants; but on the whole, the greatest number of the animal species is less abundant than the vegetable; and by comparing different kinds of plants with each other, there is not found such great differences in the number, as in the animal species; some of which bring forth a prodigious number, and others only a few; whereas the number of productions in plants is always very great throughout.

By what we have observed, it appears that the smallest and basest species seem to be the most prolific: the most minute are the most plentiful as well in animals as in plants, and in proportion as the animals are more perfect, they appear to decrease in number of individuals. Can it be thought, that certain forms of the body, as those of quadrupeds and birds, requisite for the perfection of sensation, would cost nature more organic particles than the production of less important animals?

Let us now pass to the comparison of animals and vegetables, with respect to situation, form, and size. The earth is the only place wherein vegetables can subsist. The greatest number grow above the surface, and are attached to the soil by roots. Some, as truffles, are entirely covered with earth, and a few grow under the water, but all require the surface of the earth to exist upon. Animals, on the contrary, are more generally dispersed; some dwell on the surface, and others in the bowels of the earth; some live at the bottom, and others swim in the waters of the ocean: some exist in the air, others dwell in the internal parts of plants, on the bodies of men and other animals, liquors, and even stones are not without them.

By the use of the microscope, a great number of new species of animals have been discovered: but singular as it may appear, we have not found more than one or two new species of plants by the help of this instrument. The small moss is, perhaps, the only microscopical plant spoken of; and we might, therefore, imagine that nature refused to produce very small plants, while she formed animalcules with profusion; but we might deceive ourselvesby adopting this opinion without examination, and our error might arise from plants, in fact, resembling each other more than animals; so that this moldiness, which we only take for a very minute moss, may possibly be a kind of forest or garden, filled with abundance of various plants, although we are unable to mark the difference.

By comparing the size of animals and plants there will be found a great inequality, for the distance is much greater between the size of a whale and one of these microscope animals, than between the highest oak and the moss we are now speaking of. Although bulk be only a relative attribute, it may, nevertheless, be useful to inspect into the extreme boundaries nature has allotted to her productions. In bigness animals and plants seem to have a near equality; a large whale and a large tree forms a volume not very different; whereas, among the small it has been asserted there are animals so very minute that a million of them united together, would not equal, in size, the smallest moss-plant ever seen.

The most general and most sensible difference between animals and vegetables is that of figure, for the form of animals, although infinitelyvaried, has not any resemblance to that of plants; and although the polypus will, like plants, reproduce by cutting, and may be regarded as the link between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, not only by the mode of their reproduction but also by their external form, nevertheless the figure of the animal is so different from the external form of a plant that it is difficult to be deceived therein. Some animals form things resembling plants or flowers, but plants never produce any thing like an animal; and those admirable insects which produce and form the coral, would not have been taken for flowers if coral had not been regarded as a plant. Thus the errors wherein we might fall, by comparing plants with animals, will never have any influence but on a few objects which compose the link between both, and the more observations we shall make the more we shall be convinced that the Creator has not placed a fixed line between animals and vegetables; that these two species of organized beings have many more common properties than real differences; that the production of an animal does not require of nature more, and possibly, less exertion than that of a vegetable; that in general theproduction of organized beings does not require exertion, and that, in short, the living animated nature, instead of composing a metaphysical degree of beings, is a physical property, common to all matter.

CHAPTER II.

OR[BH]REPRODUCTION IN GENERAL.

[BH]This word is used by the author in an enlarged sense of propagation, for as generation applies to animated beings, so by this he includes the vegetable as well as animal system.

We shall now make a more minute inspection into this common property of animal and vegetable nature; this power of producing its resemblance; this chain of successive individuals, which constitutes the real existence of the species; and without attachingourselves to the generation of man, or to that of any particular kind of animal, let us inspect the phenomenas of reproduction in general, let us collect facts, and enumerate the different methods nature makes use of to renew organized beings. The first, and as we think the most simple method, is, to collect in one body an infinite number of resembling organic bodies, and so to compose its substance, that there is not a part of it which does not contain a germ of the same species, and which consequently of itself might become a whole, resembling that of which it constitutes a part. This preparation seems to suppose a prodigious waste, and to carry with it profusion; yet it is a very common munificence of nature, and which manifests itself even in the most common and inferior kinds, such as worms, polypuses, elms, willows, gooseberry-trees, and many other plants and insects, each part of which contains a whole, and by the single effect of expansion alone may become a plant, or an insect. By considering organized beings in this point of view, an individual is a whole, uniformly organized in all its parts; a compound of an infinity of resembling figures and similar parts, an assemblageof germs, or small individuals of the same kind, which can expand in the same mode according to circumstances, and form new bodies, composed like those from whence they proceed.

By examining this idea thoroughly, we shall discover a connection between animals, vegetables, and minerals, which we could not expect. Salts, and some other minerals, are composed of parts resembling each other, and to all that composes them; a grain of salt is a cube, composed of an infinity of smaller cubes, which we may easily perceive by a microscope; these are also composed of other cubes still smaller, as may be perceived with a better microscope; and we cannot doubt, but that the primitive and constituting particles of this salt are likewise cubes so exceedingly minute as to escape our sight, and our imagination. Animals and plants which can multiply by all their parts, are organized bodies, of which the primitive and constituting parts are also organic and similar, of which we discern the aggregate quantity, but cannot perceive the primitive parts only by reason and analogy.

This leads us to believe that there is an infinity of organic particles actually existing and living in nature, the substance of which is the same with that of organized bodies. As we have just observed, in a structure of a similar kind, though of inanimate matter, that it was composed of an infinity of particles which have a perfect semblance to the whole body, and as there must perhaps be millions of small cubes of accumulated salts to form a sensible individual grain of sea-salt, so likewise millions of organic particles, like the whole, are required to form one out of that multiplicity of germs contained in an elm, or a polypus; and as we must separate, bruise, and dissolve a cube of sea-salt to perceive, by means of crystallization, the small cubes of which it is composed; we must likewise separate the parts of an elm or polypus to discover, by means of vegetation and expansion, the small elms or polypuses contained in those parts.

The difficulty of giving way to this idea arises from a prejudice strongly established, that there is no method of judging of the complex, except by the simple, and that, to conceive the organic constitution of a body we must reduce it to its simple and unorganizedparts, and that it is more easy to conceive how a cube is composed of other cubes than how one polypus is composed of others; but if we attentively examine what is meant by simple and complex, we shall then find that in this, as in every thing else, the plan of nature is quite different from the very rough draught of it formed by our ideas.

Our senses, as is well known, do not furnish us with exact representations of external objects, insomuch that if we are desirous of estimating, judging, comparing, measuring, &c. we are obliged to have recourse to foreign assistance, to rules, principles, instruments, &c. All these helps are the works of human knowledge, and partake more or less of the abstraction of our ideas; this abstraction, therefore, is what is called the simple, and the difficulty of reducing them to this abstraction, the complex. Extent, for example, being a general and abstracted property from nature, is not very complex; nevertheless, to form a judgment of it, we have supposed extents without depth, without breadth, and even points without any extent at all. All these abstractions have been invented for the support of our judgment, and the few definitions made use of in geometryhave occasioned a variety of prejudices and false conclusions. All that can be reduced by these definitions are termedsimple, and all that cannot be readily reduced are calledcomplex; from hence a triangle, a square, a circle, a cube, &c. are simple subjects, as well as all curves, whose geometrical laws we are acquainted with; but all that we cannot reduce by these abstracted figures and laws are complex. We do not consider that these geometrical figures exist only in our imagination; that they are not to be found in nature, or, at least, if they are discoverable there, it is because she exhibits every possible form, and that it is more difficult and rare to find simple figures of an equilateral pyramid, or an exact cube in nature, than compounded forms of a plant or an animal. In everything, therefore, we take the abstract for the simple, and the real for the complex. In Nature, on the contrary, the abstract has no existence, every thing is compounded; we shall never, of course, penetrate into the intimate structure of bodies: we cannot, therefore, pronounce on what is complex in a greater or lesser degree, excepting by the greater or lesser each subject has to ourselves and to the rest of the universe;from which reason it is we judge that the animal is more compounded than the vegetable, and the vegetable more than the mineral. This notion is just with relation to us, but we know not, in reality, whether the animal, vegetable, or mineral, is the most simple or complex; and we are ignorant whether a globule, or a cube, is more indebted for an exertion of nature, than a seed or an organic particle. If we would form conjectures on this subject, we might suppose that the most common and numerous things are the most simple but then animals would be the most simple, since the number of their kind far exceeds that of plants or minerals.

But without taking up more time on this discussion, it is sufficient to have shewn that the opinions we commonly have of the simple and complex are ideas of abstraction, that they cannot be applied to the compound productions of nature, and that when we attempt to reduce every being to elements of a regular figure, or to prismatic, cubical, or globular particles, we substitute our own imaginations in the place of realities; that the forms of the constituting particles of different bodies are absolutely unknown to us, and that, consequently,we can suppose, that an organized body is composed of organic particles, as well as that a cube is composed of other cubes.

We have no other rule to judge by than experience. We perceive that a cube of sea-salt is composed of other cubes, and that an elm consists of other smaller elms, because, by taking an end of a branch, or root, or a piece of the wood separated from the trunk, or a seed, they will alike produce a new tree. It is the same with respect to polypuses, and some other kinds of animals, which we can multiply by cutting off, and separating any of the different parts;[BI]and since our rule for judging in both is the same, why should we judge differently of them?

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