PREFACE. xx'i 



which muft unavoidably happen on many 

 accounts, but particularly becaufe thofe 

 natural hiftorians who had been brought 

 up and inured to other fyftems, who 



Tor in fome plants there are many filaments to one piftil. 

 This is polygamy. In others thsre are female flowers, 

 which are impregnated by the dud of male flov/ers, 

 which have other female flowers belonging to them, 

 i. e. which are already married. This is plainly adul- 

 tery. Now according to profeflbr Siegefl^ec, it is not 

 credible that fuch confufion and detcftable pollution 

 ihould be tolerated in nature. 



Browellius rightly obferves in his anfwer, thzt Sie- 

 gefbec had totally overlooked many inflaijces of theie 

 enormities in the animal klri'^doin, and even the Immo- 

 rality of farmers and their wives, (hepherde, jockies, 

 fportfmen, nay even ladles of reputation, who in their 

 ways promote thefe immoral and indecent pra6i:ices. 



However it mull: be obferved in favor of this very 

 fcrupulous profeflor, that fyftems of philofophy, founded 

 on fafls have, been anathematifed, and the authors 

 and favorers of them condemned to the fevereft pu- 

 nifhments, for reafons as little to the purpofe as the 

 foregoing of Siegcfjec. To quote inftances would be 

 endlefs, as every one the leafl: converfant in the hiftory 

 of learning will e;^r!ly recolleft them. But lb moderate 

 is the world now become, that I do not licar that the 

 Linn^ean fyftcm is looked on as heretical even at thq 

 court of P>.omc, though the profeflTor has drawn fome 

 /hrewd arguments againft it from the book of Gcnefis. 



a 3 had 



