ON SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 339 



Art. V. — Remarks on the Theory of Spontaneous Generation. 

 By Mr. J. B. Bladon. 



( Continued from page 286.^ 



In a satirical rhapsody published in the latter part of the 

 seventeenth century, entitled " The History of the World of 

 the Sun," there is such a plain, unvarnished description of 

 the doctrine of spontaneous generation, that I cannot forbear 

 to transcribe it. The voyager having arrived at one of the 

 dark spots observable on the sun, meets with a personage 

 who instructs him in several branches of knowledge, among 

 others is the following upon creation : " Consider well the 

 ground whereon we stand ; it is not long since it was an in- 

 digested disorderly mass, a chaos of confused matter, whereof 

 the sun had purged himself Now, after that, by the force 

 of its rays, which the sun darted against it, he mingled, 

 pressed, and compacted those numerous clouds of atoms, 

 after, I say, that by a long and powerful coction, he sepa- 

 rated the more contrary, and reverted the more similary parts 

 of this bowl, the mass, pierced through with heat, sweat so 

 that it made a deluge, which covered it above forty days ; 

 for so much water required no less time to fall down into the 



more declining and lower regions of the globe." " When 



the waters were retired, a fat and fertile mud remained upon 

 the earth. Now, when the sun shone out, there arose a 

 kind of tumour, or wheal, which could not, because of the 

 cold, thrust out its bud ; it therefore received another coction, 

 and that coction still rectifying and perfecting it by a more 

 exact mixture, it sent forth a sprout, endowed then only with 

 vegetation, but capable of sense ; but because the waters 

 which had so long stood upon the slime had too much 

 chilled it, the swelling broke not, so that the sun recocted it 

 once more ; and after a third digestion, that matrix being so 

 thoroughly heated, that the cold brought forth a man, who 

 hath retained in the liver, which is the seat of the vegetative 

 soul, and the place of the first concoction, the power of 

 growing; in the heart, which is the seat of activity and the 

 place of the second concoction, the vital powers ; and in the 

 brain, which is the seat of the intellefetual, and the place of 

 the third concoction, the power of reasoning." " Never- 

 theless, you'll tell me there is no man in your world engen- 

 dered of mud, and produced in that manner. I believe it ; 

 your world is at present overheated ; for so soon as the sun 

 draws a sprout out of the earth, finding none of that cold 

 humidity, or to say better, that certain period of completed 

 Vol. IV.~No. 43. n. s. 2 t 



