ANIMAL REPRODUCTIONS. 265 
§ thofe on which I made my experiments. Your’s 
¢ are of a fpecies with which I was unacquainted ; 
‘they feem in fome refpeét to approach the 
* large fpecies of our country, but differing in co- 
‘Jour and the fmallnefs of fize. Reproduction 
* is evidently more eafily accomplifhed in your’s. 
¢ than in thefe, or in the French fpecies, which I 
* conclude both from my own experiments and 
€ thofe of others.’ And he adds, ‘ Your {nails 
‘ have given the beft evidence of reproduétion, 
‘by gnawing through the paper that confined 
© them.’ 
From my experiments, I was confcious I had 
not been deceived, whatever the authors in the 
preceding fection might oppofe ; confidering alfo, 
that their experiments were negative, and mine 
pofitive. The logic teaching a pofitive fact is 
not overturned by a thoufand negatives; becaufe 
the accidents are innumerable, and moft of them 
unforefeen, that may difturb the fuccefs of an 
event, Yet, notwithftanding all thefe reafons, 
had my own experiments only, argued in my fa- 
your, I fhould not haye been completely fatisfied, 
But, befides M. Bonnet, the reft of my learned 
friends, who, with their own eyes had beheld this 
phyfical fa&t and with admiration, were perfectly 
convinced, {till 1 had reafon to doubt whether 
the fame would be admitted by an enlightened 
public; and every author, who publifhes his dif- 
coveries, 
