GERM DOCTRINE OF BONNET. 



259 



imply those of sensation. The animal propagates itself ; the 

 organs of generation suppose also those of nutrition, of circu- 

 lation, of sensation, of movement. We must not keep to gen- 

 eralities here we must enter into details, into the minutest 

 details. 



" When we regard the animal merely from a general point 

 of view, we are not sufficiently struck by the difficulty, one 

 might rather say the impossibility, of all mechanical solutions. 



" I do not demand that the human body, this masterpiece of 

 nature, be taken as the starting-point ; one may start from the 

 body of a vile insect. I only ask one favor of those who are 

 fond of mechanical explanations; this is, that they will cast a 

 glance at the wonders produced by the graver of the celebrated 

 Lyonet. They will not behold without profound astonishment 

 those four thousand muscles employed in the construction of 

 a caterpillar, their admirable coordination, and that of the 

 tracheae, which is no less admirable. And I am fain to per- 

 suade myself they will then feel that a whole so marvelously 

 composed and yet so harmonious, so essentially one, cannot 

 have been formed, like a watch, of related pieces, or by the 

 ingraining of an infinitude of diverse molecules united by 

 successive apposition. They will admit, I hope, that such a 

 whole bears the indelible imprint of a work done at a single 

 stroke. 



"What is the use, indeed, of putting one's soul to torture 

 in seeking mechanical solutions, which do not satisfy the case, 

 while there are very decisive facts that seem to lead us as by 

 the hand to the preexistence of germs ? I do not pretend to 

 pronounce judgment on the ways the Creator has chosen for 

 bringing divers organic wholes into existence ; I limit myself 

 to saying that, in the actual state of our knowledge of the 

 physical world, we do not discover any rational way of explain- 

 ing mechanically the formation of an animal, or even the least 

 organ. 



" I therefore think it more consonant with sound philosophy, 

 because it is more consonant with facts, to admit, as at least 

 highly probable, that organized bodies preexisted from the 

 beginning." 



