336 ON GENERATION. 



material which is also various in its nature, and variously dis- 

 tributed, and such as is now adapted to the formation of one 

 part, now of another ; on which account we believe the perfect 

 hen's-egg to be constituted of various parts. 



Now it appears clear from my history, that the generation 

 of the chick from the egg is the result of epigenesis, rather 

 than of metamorphosis, and that all its parts are not fashioned 

 simultaneously, but emerge in their due succession and order ; 

 it appears, too, that its form proceeds simultaneously with its 

 growth, and its growth with its form ; also that the generation 

 of some parts supervenes on others previously existing, from 

 which they become distinct ; lastly, that its origin, growth, and 

 consummation are brought about by the method of nutrition ; 

 and that at length the foetus is thus produced. For the for- 

 mative faculty of the chick rather acquires and prepares its own 

 material for itself than only finds it when prepared, and the 

 chick seems to be formed and to receive its growth from no 

 other than itself. And, as all things receive their growth from 

 the same power by which they are created, so likewise should 

 we believe, that by the same power by which the chick is pre- 

 served, and caused to grow from the commencement, (whether 

 that may have been the soul or a faculty of the soul,) by that 

 power, I say, is it also created. For the same efficient and 

 conservative faculty is found in the egg as in the chick ; and 

 of the same material of which it constitutes the first particle 

 of the chick, out of the very same does it nourish, increase, and 

 superadd all the other parts. Lastly, in generation by meta- 

 morphosis the whole is distributed and separated into parts ; 

 but in that by epigenesis the whole is put together out of parts 

 in a certain order, and constituted from them. 



Wherefore Fabricius was in error when he looked for the 

 material of the chick, (as a distinct part of the egg, from which 

 its body was formed,) as if the chick were created by meta- 

 morphosis, or a transformation of the material in mass; and 

 as if all, oj at least the principal parts of the body sprang from 

 the same material, and, to use his own words, were incorporated 

 simultaneously. [He is, therefore, of course opposed to the 

 notion] of the chick being formed by epigenesis, in which a 

 certain order is observed according to the dignity and the use 

 of parts, where at first a small foundation is, as it were, laid, 



