SECT. XXXIX. 8. 9. GENERATION. 423 



with formative appetencies and the molecules with formative pro- 

 penfities reciprocally ftimulate and embrace each other, and in- 

 ftantly coalefce ; and may thus popularly be compared to the re- 

 ciprocal attractions of fome of the atoms of inanimate matter, 

 or to the double affinities of chemiftry. But there are animal 

 fa&s, which may be compared to both thefe, and are thence 

 more philofophically analogous to them ; and thefe are the two 

 great fupports of animated nature, the pafiions of hunger and of 

 love. In the former the appetency refides only in the ftomach, 

 or perhaps in the cardia ventriculi, but the object confilts of in- 

 animate matter ; in the latter there exift reciprocal appetencies 

 and propenfities in the male and female, which mutually ex- 

 cite them to embrace each other. Two other animal facb are 

 equally analogous ; the thirft, which refides at the upper end 

 of the efophagus, and though it pofleffes appetency itfelf, its ob- 

 ject is inanimate matters ; but in ladefcent females, when they 

 give fuck to their young, there exifts a reciprocal appetency in 

 the mother to part with her milk, and in the young offspring to 

 receive it. 



This then finally I conceive to be the manner of the produc- 

 tion of the lateral progeny of vegetables. The long caudex of 

 an exifting bud of a tree, which conflitutes a (ingle filament of 

 the prefent bark, is furnilhed with glands numerous as the per- 

 fpirative or mucous glands of animal bodies ; and that thefe are 

 of two kinds, the one fecreting from the vegetable blood the fi- 

 brils with formative appetencies, correfpondent to the mafculine 

 fecretion of animals ; and the other fecreting from the vegeta- 

 ble blood the molecules with formative propenfities, correfpon- 

 dent to the feminine fecretion of animals, and then that both 

 thefe kinds of formative particles are depofited beneath the cu- 

 ticle of the bark along the whole courfe of it, and inftamly em- 

 brace and coalefce, forming a new caudex along the fide of its 

 parent, with vegetable life, and with the additional powers of 

 nutrition, and of growth. 



9. This then is the great fecret of nature. More living 

 particles, fome with appetencies, and fome with propenfities, 

 are produced by the powers of vitality in the fabrication of the 

 vegetable blood, than are neceflary for nutrition, or for the ref- 

 toration of decompofing organs. Thefe are fecreted by differ- 

 ent glands, and detruded externally, and produce by their -com- 

 bination a new vital organization beneath the cuticles of trees 

 over the old one. Thele new combinations of vital fibrils and 

 molecules acquire new appetencies, and fabricate molecules 

 with new propenfities ; and thus poflefs the power of forming 

 the leaf or lungs at one extremity of the new caudex ; and the 



radicles 



