Sect. XXXIX. 8. 9. GENERATION. 42 



•1 



with formative appetencies and the molecules with formative pro- 

 penfities reciprocally ftimulate and embrace each other, and in- 

 itantly coalefce; and may thus popularly be compared to the recip- 

 rocal attractions of fome of the atoms of inanimate matter, or to 

 the double affinities of chemiltry. But there are animal facts, 

 which may be compared to both thefe, and are thence more 

 philofophically analagous to them ; and thefe are the two great 

 iupports of animated nature, the paflions of hunger of and love. 

 In the former the appetency refides only in the ftomach, or per- 

 haps in the cardia ventriculi, but the objecT: confiits of inani- 

 mate matter ; in the latter there exift reciprocal appetencies 

 and propenfities in the male and female, which mutually ex- 

 cite them to embrace each other. Two other animal facls are 

 equally analogous ; the third, which refides at the upper end 

 of the efophagus, and though it pofTefles appetency itfelf, its ob- 

 ject is inanimate matters ; but in lattefcent females, when they 

 give fuck to their young, there exifts a reciprocal appetency in 

 the mother to part with her milk, and in the young offspring to 

 receive it. 



This then finally I conceive to be the manner of the produc- 

 tion of the lateral progeny of vegetables. The long caudex of 

 an exifting bud of a tree, which conftitutes a fingle filament of 

 the prefent bark, is furnifhed with glands numerous as the perfpi- 

 rative or mucous glands of animal bodies \ and that thefe are of 

 two kinds, the one fecreting from the vegetable blood the fibrils 

 with formative appetencies, correfpondent to the mafculine fe- 

 cretion of animals ; and the other fecreting from the vegetable 

 blood the molecules with formative propenfities, correfpon- 

 dent to the feminine fecretion of animals, and then that both 

 thefe kinds of formative particles are depofited beneath the cu- 

 ticle of the bark along the whole courfe of it, and inftantly em- 

 brace and coalefce, forming a new caudex along the fide of its 

 parent, with vegetable life, and with the additional powers of 

 nutrition, and of growtfi. 



9. This then is the great fecret of nature. More living 

 particles, fome with appetencies, and fome with propenfitie-, 

 are produced by the powers of vitality in the fabrication of the 

 vegetable blood, than are necefTary for nutrition, or for the res- 

 toration of decompofing organs. Thefe are fecreted by differ- 

 ent glands, and detruded externally, and produce by their com- 

 bination a new vital organization beneath the cuticles of trees 

 over the old one. Thefe new combinations of vital fibrils and 

 molecules acquire new appetencies, and fabricate molecules 

 with new propenfities ; and thus poffefs the power of forming 

 the leaf or lungs at one extremity of the new caudex ; and the 



radicles 



