4i 4 GENERATION. Sect. XXXIX. 7. c. 



original nutritive particles require no previous preparation by di- 

 geftion, fecretion, and oxygenation : but require fimply the fe- 

 lection and apportion, which is performed by the living fila- 

 ment. Mr. Blumenbach fays, that he porTefles a human fetus of 

 only five weeks old, which is the fize of a common bee, and 

 has all the features of the face, every finger, and every toe com- 

 plete ; and in which the organs of generation are diftinctly feen. 

 P. 76. In another fetus, whofe head was not larger than a pea, 

 the whole of the bafis of the (kull with all its depreflions, aper- 

 tures, and procefTes, were marked in the moil fharp and diftinct 

 manner, though without any ofhfication. lb. 



5. In fome cafes by the nutriment originally depofited by the 

 mother the filament acquires parts not exactly fimilar to thofe 

 of the father, as in the production of mules and mulattoes. In 

 other cafes, the deficiency of this original nutriment caufes defi- 

 ciencies of the extreme parts of the fetus, which are laft form- 

 ed, as the fingers, toes, lips. In other cafes, a duplicature of 

 limbs, is caufed by the fuperabundance of this original nutritive 

 fluid, as in the double yolks of eggs, and the chickens from 

 them with four legs and four wings. But the production of 

 other monfters, as thofe with two heads, or with parts placed in 

 wrong fituations, feems to arife from the imagination of the 

 father being in fome maiiner imitated by the extreme veflels of 

 the feminal glands 5 as the colours of the fpots on eggs, and the 

 change of the colour of the hair and feathers of animals by do- 

 meilication, may be caufed in the fame manner by the imagina- 

 tion of the mother. 



6. The living filament is a part of the father, and has there- 

 fore certain propenfities, or appetencies, which belong to him ; 

 which may have been gradually acquired during a million of 

 generations, even from the infancy of the habitable earth *, and 

 which now pofielles fuch properties, as would render, by the 

 appofition of nutritious particles, the new fetus exactly fimilar 

 to the father ; as occurs in the buds and bulbs of vegetables, 

 and in the polypus, and taenia, or tape-worm. But as the firft 

 nutriment is fupplied by the mother, and therefore refembles fuch 

 nutritive particles, as have been ufed for her own nutriment or 

 growth, the progeny takes in part the likenefs of the mother. 



Other fimihrities of the excitability, or of the form of the male 

 parent, fuch as the broad or narrow ihoulders, or fuch as con- 

 ftitute certain hereditary difeafes, as fcrofula, epilepfy, infanity, 

 have their origin produced in one or perhaps two generations ; 

 as in the progeny of thofe who drink much vinous fpirits ; arid 

 thofe hereditary propenfities ceafe again, as I have obferved, if 

 one or two fober generations fucceed m , otherwife the family 

 becomes extinct. This 



