SECT. XXXIX. 3. i. GENERATION, 385 



feeds which adhere till they are fufficiently mature, and then fall 

 upon the ground, and take root like other bulbs. 



The lateral produ6tion of plants by wires, while each new 

 plant is thus chained to its parent, and continues to put forth 

 another and another, as the wire creeps onward on the ground, 

 is exactly refembled by the tape- worm, or taenia, fo often found 

 in the bowels, ftretching itfelf in a chain quite from the ftom- 

 ach to the re&um. Linnxus aflerts, " that it grows old at one 

 extremity, while it continues to gerferate young ones at the oth- 

 er, proceeding ad infinitum, like a root of grafs. The feparate 

 joints are called gourd- worms, and propagate new joints like the 

 parent without end, each joint being furmftied with its proper 

 mouth, and organs of digeftjon." Syftema natune. Vermes 

 tenia. In this animal there evidently appears a power of repro- 

 dulion without any maternal apparatus for the purpofe of fup- 

 plying nutriment and oxygenation to the embryon, as it remains 

 attached to its father till its maturity. The volvox globator, 

 which is a tranfparent animal, is faid by Linnaeus to bear within 

 it fons and grand-fons to the fifth generation. Thefe are prob- 

 ably living fetufes, produced by the father, of different degrees 

 of maturity, to be detruded at different periods of time, like the 

 unimpregnated eggs of various fizes, which are found in poul- 

 try ; and as they are produced without any known copulation, 

 contribute to evince, that the living embryon in other orders of 

 animals is formed by the male parent, and not by the mother, as 

 one parent has the power to produce it. 



This idea of the reproduction of animals from a fingle living 

 filament of their fathers, appears to have been fhadowed or al- 

 legorized in the curious account in facred writ of the formation 

 of Eve from a rib of Adam. 



From all thefe analogies I conclude, that the embryon is pro- 

 duced folely by the male, and that the female fupplies it with a 

 proper nidus, with fuftenance, and with oxygenation ; and that 

 the idea of the femen of the male conflituting only a flimulus to 

 the egg of the female, exciting it into life, (as held by fome phi- 

 lofophers) has no fupportfrom experiment or analogy. 



III. I. Many ingenious phiiofophers have found fo great 

 difficulty in conceiving the manner of the reproduction of ani- 

 mals, that they have fuppofed all the numerous progeny to have 

 exifted in miniature in the animal originally created ; and that 

 theie infinitely minute forms are only evolved or diftended a& 

 the embryon increafes in the womb. This idea, befides its being 

 unfupported by any analogy we are acquainted with, afcribes a 

 greater tenuity to organized matter, than we can readily admit; 

 as thefe included embryons are fuppofed each of them to confift 



VOL. I. B B b of 



