36 GENERATION OF INSECTS 
of the charlatan, Paracelsus, who, impiously, would have 
us believe that there is a way to create manikins in the 
retorts of alchemists. I am still more scandalized at the 
assertions of others, who make these lies a foundation 
for conjecture concerning the greatest mystery of the 
Christian faith, namely, the resurrection of the body at 
the end of the world. The Greek, George Pisida, was 
one of those who exhorted people to believe in the Res- 
urrection, giving the phoenix as an example of it; and 
the famous chemist. Sir Kenelm Digby, tried to prove 
the same by re-creating crabs out of their own salts, by 
chemical means. The holy mysteries of our Faith can- 
not be comprehended by human intelligence; unlike nat- 
ural things, these are of the special workmanship of 
God, who is believed to be omnipotent, and therefore it 
is possible to believe blindly in all His works, for so they 
are best understood. In this sense a charming Italian 
poet wrote: 
" Heaven's secrets he alone of men perceives, 
Who shuts his eyes and trustfully believes." 
Leaving this long digression and returning to my ar- 
gument, it is necessary to tell you that although I thought 
I had proved that the flesh of dead animals could not 
engender worms unless the semina of live ones were de- 
posited therein, still, to remove all doubt, as the trial had 
been made with closed vessels into which the air could 
not penetrate or circulate, I wished to attempt a new ex- 
periment by putting meat and fish in a large vase closed 
only with a fine Naples veil, that allowed the air to en- 
ter. For further protection against flies, I placed the 
vessel in a frame covered with the same net. I never 
saw any worms in the meat, though many were to be 
