SECT. 3] 



AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 



175 



in the Egge, or how the seminal principles of mint, pompions, and 

 other vegetables, can fashion Water into various plants, each of them 

 endow'd with its peculiar and determinate shape and with divers 

 specifick and discriminating Qualities? How does this hypothesis 

 shew us, how much Salt, how much Sulphur, how much Mercury must be 

 taken to make a Chick or a Pompion? and if we know that, what 

 principle is it, that manages these ingredients and contrives, for 

 instance, such liquors as the White and Yolke of an Egge into such 

 a variety of textures as is requisite to fashion the Bones, Arteries, 

 Veines, Nerves, Tendons, Feathers, Blood and other parts of a Chick; 

 and not only to fashion each Limbe, but to connect them altogether, 

 after that manner which is most congruous to the perfection of the 

 Animal which is to consist of them? For to say that some more fine 

 and subtile part of either or all the Hypostatical Principles is the 

 Director in all the business and the Architect of all this elaborate 

 structure, is to give one occasion to demand again, what proportion 

 and way of mixture of the Tria Prima afforded this Architectonick 

 Spirit, and what Agent made so skilful and happy a mixture?" 

 Boyle's instance of the magnetic needle pointing nearly, not exactly, 

 at the north, and his use of the expressions "how much, how many, 

 proportion, way of mixture", indicate that he was moving towards 

 a quantitative chemistry, and by express implication a quantitative 

 embryology. Elsewhere he says that he thinks the Tria Prima will 

 hardly explain a tenth part of the phenomena which the "Leucip- 

 pian" or atomistic hypothesis is competent to deal with. Thus, 

 although Boyle made few experiments or observations on embryos, 

 he occupies a very important position in the history of embryology. 

 During the last two decades of this century, the Oxford Philo- 

 sophical Society were occupied on a good many occasions with 

 problems relating to embryology. It is extremely interesting to note, 

 in connection with what we have just seen in Boyle, that John 

 Standard of Merton College reported on February 10, 1685, "the 

 following obbs. concerning ye weight of ye severall parts of Henn's 

 eggs ; done with a pair of scales which turned with \ a grain. 



ozs. dr. 



A henn's egg weighed 2 



The skin weighed 



The shell 

 The yolk 

 The white 



grns. 



15 



16 



4 



Loss in weighing 



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