402 NEW ATLANTIS. 



fects ; as continuing life in them, though divers parts, 

 which you account vital, be perished and taken forth ; 

 - &amp;lt; resuscitating of some that seem dead in appearance ; 

 and the like. We try also all poisons and other med 

 icines upon them, as well of chirurgery as physic. 1 

 By art likewise, we make them greater or taller than 

 their kind is ; and contrariwise dwarf them, and stay 

 their growth : we make them more fruitful and bear- 

 ins: than their kind is ; and contrariwise barren and 



* 



not generative. Also we make them differ in colour, 

 shape, activity, many ways. We find means to make 

 commixtures and copulations of different kinds ; which 

 have produced many new kinds, and them not barren, 

 as the general opinion is. We make a number of 

 kinds of serpents, worms, flies, fishes, of putrefaction ; 

 whereof some are advanced (in effect) to be perfect 

 creatures, like beasts or birds ; and have sexes, and do 

 propagate. Neither do we this by chance, but we 

 know beforehand of what matter and commixture 

 what kind of those creatures will arise. 2 



&quot; We have also particular pools, where we make 

 trials upon fishes, as we have said before of beasts 

 and birds. 



&quot; We have also places for breed and generation 

 of those kinds of worms and flies which are of 

 special use ; such as are with you your silk-worms 

 and bees. 



1 The translation adds ut corpori humano melius caveamm. 



2 This passage is quoted with great approbation by Geoffroi St. Hilaire 

 at the end of a memoir on the results of artificial incubation read before 

 the Academy of Sciences in 1826, and published in the Annales du Museum 

 for that year. It may be said that he was the first by whom the scientific 

 importance of monstrosities was fully appreciated, and in answer to the 

 objections which were made to the study of Teratology on the ground of 

 its inutility, he invokes the authority of Bacon. R. L. E. 



