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Show ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO J. First Monas moves, an unconnected point, Plays round the drop without a limb or joint; Then Vibrio waves, with capillary eels, And Vorticella whirls her living wheels; 290 While insect Proteus sports with changeful forn1 Through the bright tide, a globe, a cube, a worm. Last o'er the field. the Mite enormous swims, Swells his red heart; and writhes his giant limbs. V. " ORGANIC LIFE beneath the shoreless waves Was born and nurs'd in Ocean's pearly caves; Beneath the shoreless waves, I. 295. The earth was originally covered with water, as appears from some of its highest mountains, consistii1g of shells cemented together by a solution of part of them, as the limestone rocks of the Alp ; Ferber's Travels. It must be thcref'ore concluded, that animal life began beneath the sea. Nor 1s this unanalogous to what still occurs, as all quadrupeds aml mankind in their cmhryon state are aquatic animals; and tllns may be said to resemble gnats and frogs. The fetus in the uterus has an organ called the placenta, the fine extremities of the vessels of which permeate the arteries of the uterus, and the blood of the fctu.· ' bccomcs thus oxygenated from the passing stream of the maternal arterial blood; e,'actly as is done by the gills of fi ·h from the stream of water, which they occasion to pass through them. But the chicken in the egg possesses a kind of aerial respiration, since t11e extremities of its placental vessels terminate on a membra- CANTO I. PRODUCTION OF LIFE. First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass, Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass; These, as successive generations bloom, 27 New powers acquire, and larger limbs assume; Whence countless groups of vegetation spring, And breathing realms of fin, and feet, and wing. 300 " Thus the tall Oak, the giant of the wood, Which bears Britannia's thunders on the flood. ' The Whale, unmeasured monster of the main, The lordly Lion, monarch of the plain, The Eagle soaring in the realms of air, Whose eye undazzled drinks the solar glare, nous bag, which contains air, at the broad end of the CO"O' • and· th' th } . k · h o o ' In IS e c 11c 111 t e egg differs from the fetus in the womb as ·th · in tl · 1 , ere Is , 1e ~~·g no .c1rcu a:ing maternal blood for the insertion of the extrcmtties o: 1ts 1~e~p1ratory vessels, and in this also I suspect that the eggs of bu·ds d1fter from the spawn of fish. whicJ1 latt · · d · ' er 1s Im-merse m wa~er, and which has probably the extremities of its respi- :atory organ. mserted into the soft membrane which covers it, and is 111 contact with the water. Fh·st forms minute, 1. £97. See Additional Note I. on Spontaneous Vitality. |
