II* &EMINAL VERMICUD!, ^if 



Previous to deep confideration of what was ad> 

 vanced by Linnaeus, I could not diffemble my 

 extreme furprife to fee Haller cited as one of thofe 

 who denied the exiftence of fpermatic vermicuiij 

 whereas he had always been one of their mo(t 

 flrenuous fupporters. His annotations on tha 

 Ledures of Boerhaave, his Elements of Phyfio- 

 logy, his Phyfiology at large, in a word, all his 

 works bear the mofl manifeft evidence of it. In 

 the fequel of this trad, 1 fhali have occafion to 

 ufe the authority of fo great a phyfiologill. 



We fee how eafily the opinion of the celebrate 

 ed Upfal botanift is eftabliihed ; fcarcely has he 

 viewed Leeuwenhoeck's animalcula when he de*. 

 cidedly pronounces they are not animals. 1 leave 

 it to the judgment of the learned and impartial 

 reader. Whether a hafty glance of the vermicu* 

 li, and of only one fpecies, is fufEcient for pofl- 

 tively deciding their nature, and deciding it better 

 than Leeuwenhoeck, who had, during a num- 

 ber of years, examined fo many fpecies with (q 

 praftifed and attentive an eye. We know well 

 the time and labour that naturalifts have beftow- 

 ed in afcertaining the nature of certain organifed 

 bodies doubted whetjier to belong to the clafs 

 of animals or plants. Yet thefe bodies were not, 

 like feminal vermiculi, m.icrofcopic anim.als; their 

 fize admitted of them being completely manipu- 

 lated, and eafily. feen with the eye. Linnaeus 



fhould 



