VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 45 



little time, he found that flies laid their eggs upon the linen cloth ; 

 but no maggots were produced in the flesh. We must not con- 

 clude that insects are produced by equivocal generation, because 

 we see many thousands of them about pools and ditches, where 

 the putrefying filth of those places furnishes plentiful nourishment 

 for them, which is the reason that their eggs are there deposited. 

 The Stapella hirsuta produces a flower that smells like carrion, 

 for which reason the flesh flies, deceived by the smell, fill the 

 whole flower with their eggs, taking it for putrid flesh. We have 

 no reason to believe, what some have asserted, that wheat degen- 

 erates into barley, and barley into oats, and oats into broom 

 grass ; for every species produces its own like ; nor was it ever 

 known that the fierce eagle produced a timorous dove. Having 

 confuted equivocal generation, it will follow that every living 

 thing is produced by univocal generation, or from an egg. Now 

 vegetables we have already proved, are endued with life, therefore 

 they all proceed from eggs. And indeed the great Harvey long 

 ago maintained this doctrine, that every living thing derives its 

 origin from an egg. But some of the moderns have strenuously 

 endeavored to overthrow this opinion, their cause being chiefly 

 supported by such arguments as the following. * If, say they, we 

 take a part from the root, and set it in the ground, it strikes root, 

 and a new plant springs up ; again, if a polypus be cut into seve- 

 ral parts, from each of these parts an entire and complete poly- 

 pus is formed, according to Trumbull and others. But do we 

 not as frequently see that a plant produces . from the same root 

 several shoots or stems ? For a stem is nothing but a root above 

 ground ; for which reason, if we turn a tree, as for example, the 

 cherrytree, upside down, the stem will become the root, and the 

 root be changed into branches. Besides, what we have said is 

 farther confirmed by the branches, all of which spring from the 

 stem or root ; but the stem or root from whence this branch or 

 shoot was taken, arose from a seed or egg. The same thing 

 may be said of the polypus among the animals ; and therefore a 

 polypus lives a vegetable life, or a vegetable lives the life of a 

 polypus ; and this manner of propagation, through every race in 

 the animal creation, is extremely common in the vegetable king- 



