in the scale until we come to
the reptiles and insects, we shall find not only that the loss of limbs
is not attended with death, but that the members are reproduced. Let
any one take a spider by its legs, it will leave them in your hands that
it may escape. Confine the animal under a glass, and in a few weeks it
will have all its members perfect as before. Lizards are still more
peculiar in their reproduction. I was at Madeira for many months, and
often caught the lizards which played about the walls and roofs of the
out-houses; and if ever I caught a lizard by the tail, he would make a
spring, and leave his tail in my hand, which seemed to snap off as
easily as would a small carrot. Now the tail of the lizard is longer
than its body, and a continuation of the vertebrae of the back. I soon
found out that lizards did not die from this extensive loss, but, on the
contrary, that their tails grew again. Even the first week afterwards,
a little end began to show itself, and in about two months the animal
had reproduced the whole. What I am about to say now will probably be
considered by some as incredible; they are, however, at full liberty to
disbelieve it. One day I was looking out of the window with the late
Tom Sheridan, who lived in the same house, and we observed on the roof
of the out-house a lizard with two tails, but neither of them full
grown; and we argued that, at the time the animal lost his tail, he must
have suffered some division of the stump. Being at that time a
naturalist, i.e. very cruel; I immediately caught a lizard, pulled off
his tail, notched the vertebra, and turned him loose again. Our
conjectures were right; the animal in two or three weeks had two tails
growing out like the one we had seen. I repeated this experiment
several times, and it always appeared to succeed; and all the two-tailed
lizards were called mine.

Now this power of reproduction increases as you descend the scale; as an
instance, take the polypus, which is as near as possible at the bottom
of it. If you cut a polypus into twenty pieces, without any regard to
division, in a short time you will have twenty perfect polypi.

Now the deductions I would draw from these remarks are--

That the most perfect animals are least capable of reproduction, and
most sensible of pain.

That as the scale of nature descends, animals become less perfect, and
more capable of reproduction.

Ergo--they cannot possibly feel the same