322 ON GENERATION. 



if it were said by the Almighty, " Let there be progeny," and 

 straight it is so ? 



Let physicians, therefore, cease to wonder at what always 

 excites their astonishment, namely, the manner in which epi- 

 demic, contagious, and pestilential diseases scatter their seeds, 

 and are propagated to a distance through the air, or by some 

 1 fomes ' producing diseases like themselves, in bodies of a 

 different nature, and in a hidden fashion silently multiplying 

 themselves by a kind of generation, until they become so fatal, 

 and with the permission of the Deity spread destruction far 

 and wide among man and beast ; since they will find far greater 

 wonders than these taking place daily in the generation of 

 animals. For agents in greater number and of more efficiency 

 are required in the construction and preservation of an animal, 

 than for its destruction ; since the things that are difficult and 

 slow of growth, decay with ease and rapidity. Seneca x ob- 

 serves, with his usual elegance, " How long a time is needed 

 for conception to be carried out to parturition ! with what la- 

 bour and tenderness is an infant reared ! to what diligent and 

 continued nutrition must the body be subject, to arrive at 

 adolescence ! but by what a nothing is it destroyed ! It takes 

 an age to establish cities, an hour to destroy them. By great 

 watching are all things established and made to nourish, quickly 

 and of a sudden do they fall in pieces. That which becomes 

 by long growth a forest, quickly, in the smallest interval of 

 time, and by a spark, is reduced to ashes." Nor is even a 

 spark necessary, since by the solar rays transmitted through a 

 small piece of glass and concentrated to a focus, fire may be 

 immediately produced, and the largest things be set in flames. 

 So easy is every thing to nature's majesty, who uses her strength 

 sparingly, and dispenses it with caution and foresight for the 

 commencement of her works by imperceptible additions, but 

 hastens to decay with suddenness and in full career. In the 

 generation of things is seen the most excellent, the eternal 

 and almighty God, the divinity of nature, worthy to be looked 

 up to with reverence ; but all mortal things run to destruction 

 of their own accord in a thousand ways. 



1 Nat. Quaest. lib. iii, cap. 27. 



