393 GENERATION. SECT. XXXIX. 4. 8. 



The numerous tribes of infers without wings, from the fpi- 

 cler to the fcorpion, from the flea to the lobfter ; or with wings, 

 from the gnat and the ant to the wafp and the dragon-fly, dif- 

 fer fo totally from each other, and from the red-blooded claffes 

 above defcribed, both in the forms of their bodies, and their 

 modes of life ; befides the organ of fenfe, which they feem to 

 poffefs in their antennae or horns, to which it has been thought 

 by fome naturalifts, that other creatures have nothing fimilar ; 

 that it can fcarcely be fuppofed that this nation of animals could 

 have been produced by the fame kind of living filament, as the 

 red-blooded clafles above mentioned. And yet the changes 

 which many of them undergo in their early ftate to that of their 

 maturity, are as different, as one animal can be from another. 

 As thofe of the gnat, which paffes his early (tate in water, and 

 then ftretching out his new wings, and expanding his new 

 lungs, rifes in the air ; as of the caterpillar, and bee-nymph, 

 which feed on vegetable leaves or farina, and at length burfting 

 from their felf-formed graves, become beautiful winged inhab- 

 itants of the fkies, journeying from flower to flower, and nourifh- 

 ed by the ambrofial food of honey. 



There is ftill another clafs of animals, which are termed ver^ 

 mes by Linnseus, which are without feet, or brain, and are her- 

 maphrodites, as worms, leeches, fnails, fhell-fifh, coralline infects 

 and fponges j which poffefs the fimpleft ilruclure of all animals, 

 and appear totally different from thofe already defcribed. The 

 fimplicity of their ftrudlure, however, can afford no argument 

 againft their having been produced from a living filament as 

 above contended. 



Laft of all the various tribes of vegetables are to be enumera- 

 ted amongft the inferior orders of animals. Of thefe the an- 

 thers and ftigrnas have already been (hewn to poflcfs fome organs 

 of fenfe, to be nourifhed by honey, and to have the power of 

 generation like infects, and have thence been announced amongft 

 the animal kingdom in Seci, XIII. and to thefe muft be added 

 the buds and bulbs which conititute the viviparous offspring of 

 vegetation. The former I fuppofe to be beholden to a fingle 

 living filament for their feminal or amatorial procreation ; and 

 the latter to the fame caufe for their lateral or branching gener- 

 ation, which they poffefs in common with the polypus, tgenia, 

 and volvox ; and the fimplicity of which is an argument in fa- 

 vour of the fimilarity of its caufe. 



Linnxus fuppofes, in the Introduction to his Natural Orders, 

 that very few vegetables were at firft created, and that their 

 numbers were iricreafed by their intermarriages, and adds, fua- 

 dent h#c Creatoris leges a fimplicibus ad compofita. Many 



other 



