43 6 GENERATION. SECT. XXXIX. i i.z. 



in a ftate of diffblution. Whence fome philofophers have late- 

 ly fuppofed this green matter to be of animal origin, as it chang- 

 es from a globular form to that of a thread , which has occa- 

 Coned much inveftigation by Fontana, Ingenhouz, and Sene- 

 bier. Journal de Phyfique par Delametherie, T. 5. 



In the fame manner the mucor, or mould, which grows on 

 all decompofing vegetable and animal fubftances, which are at 

 reft in a proper degree of moifture and warmth, and which 

 thence appears to have no parent, is probably firft produced by 

 the fpontaneous appetencies and aptitudes or propenfities of the 

 decompofed particles of organic bodies j and probably thefe 

 new combinations are at firft microfcopic objects, which pro- 

 duce others by lateral or folitary generation, more and more 

 perfect and of greater magnitude than themfelves, but which 

 never acquire the organization neceffary for fexual reproduc- 

 tion. The fungi which grow only on decaying parts of trees 

 or other vegetables, as well as the muChrooms from horfe dung, 

 which commence with fmall hair-like roots, and probably never 

 produce feeds, feem to arife in a fimilar manner from fpontane- 

 ous microfcopic organization, improved and magnified by fuc- 

 ceflive folitary generations. 



2. The fecond kind of animal production, which is properly 

 generation, commences in more points than one ; as in the pro- 

 duction of the long caudexes of the buds of trees ; and the ani- 

 mated fibrils and molecules firft combine, and form organized 

 bodies ; and thefe unite again, where they are in contact ; and 

 thus the new embryon commences in many points at once ; 

 and the folitary mode of generation is fecondary to the produc- 

 tion of the fmalleft microfcopic animals, which I fuppofe com- 

 mence their exiftence in one point only, that is, by the produc- 

 tion firft of a fingle living filament, which I formerly believed 

 to be the general mode of propagation. This folitary mode of 

 generation occurs in the production of the buds of all vegeta- 

 bles ; and perhaps the moft imperfect vegetables, as truffles, and 

 other fungi, are only propagated by buds to this day, not hav- 

 ing yet acquired fexual organs, as feems alfo to occur in fome 

 imperfect animals, as the polypi, hydra, and tenia. 



3. Other vegetables have acquired an hermaphrodite ftate, 

 ^nd poflefs external fexual organs, as in moft flowers ; but both 

 the male and female organs acquire or produce their adapted 

 fluids from the fame mafs of blood, and thus refemble hermaph- 

 rodite infects, as fnails and worms. 



4. Other vegetables have acquired a Reparation of the fexes, 

 cither on the fame plant, as in the clafs of vegetables termed by 

 Linnaeus, monoecia, or on different plants, as in the clafs dioe- 



gia; 



