426 GENERATION. Sect. XXXIX. 9. u 



parts 01 the growing fetus, as the fkin, nails, hair, and the or- 

 gans which diftinguilh the fexes. 



If the molecules fecreted by the female organ into the peri- 

 carp of flowers, or into the ovary of animals, were fuppofed to 

 coniift ot only unorganized or inanimate particles ; and the fi. 

 brils fecreted by the male organ only to poiTefs formative appe- 

 tencies to fele£l and combine with them ; the new embryon 

 mud probably have always refembled the father, and no mules 

 could have had exiftence. 



But by the theory above delivered it appears, that the new 

 offspring, both in vegetable and animal reproduction, whether 

 it be a mule or not, mud fometimes more refemble the male 

 parent, and fometimes the female one, and fometimes to be a 

 combination of them both, as in the Epigram of Aufonius. 



Dum dubitat Natura marem, faceretne pucllam 

 Fa&us es, O pulcher, pene puella, Puer ! 



IX. i. The foregoing remarks on vegetable generation are 

 chiefly tranferibed from my work on Phytologia, Se£t. VII. and 

 may be applied to animal reproduction ; fince from this analo- 

 gy to the lateral propagation of vegetable buds, if we fuppofe, 

 that redundant fibrils with formative appetencies are produced 

 by, or detached from, various parts of the male animal, and cir- 

 culating in his blood, are fecreted by adapted glands, and con- 

 ilitute the feminal fluid *, and that redundant molecules w r ith 

 formative aptitudes or propenfities are produced by, or detached 

 from, various parts of the female, and circulating in her blood, 

 are fecreted by adapted glands, and form a refervoir in the ova- 

 ry ; and finally that when thefe formative fibrils, and forma- 

 tive molecules, become mixed together in the uterus, that they 

 coaleice or embrace each other, and form different parts of the 

 new embryon, as in the cicatricula of the impregnated egg ; we 

 may more readily comprehend fome circumftances, which are 

 difficult to underftand on any other fyftem of generation. 



It mud be obferved that this theory differs from that of M. 

 Buffbn ; as he conceives the fame organized particles to exift 

 in the generative fecretions both of the male and female par- 

 ent •, whereas in this theory it is fuppofed, that particles com- 

 pletely organized are too large to pais the glands of either fex, 

 and that thofe, which are {een in the femen by microfcopes, are 

 the confequence of the ftagnation of the fluid, as in the puftules 

 01 the itch, and in the liquid feces of dyfenteric patients. Hence 

 fibrils with formative appetencies and the molecules wiih 

 formative aptitudes or propenfities mult coalefce to produce the 



.'. rganization. 



Secondly 



