GENERATION OF INSECTS. 9 



affirms, that even in his time, when the earth was sup- 

 posed to be growing too old to be reproductive, c many 

 animals were concreted out of mud by showers and 

 sunshine.'* 



But the ancients, it would appear, had the shrewd- 

 ness seldom to venture upon illustrations of their phi- 

 losophical romances by particular examples. This was 

 reserved for the more reckless theory-builders of our 

 own times. We find Robinet, for example, asserting 

 that, as it was nature's chief object to make man, she 

 began her * apprentissage,' as he calls it, by forming 

 minerals resembling the single organs of the human 

 body, such as the brain in the fossil called Brain-stone 

 (Meandrina certbriformis, PARKINSON.)! Darwin, 

 again, taking the hint from Epicurus, dreams that an- 

 imals arose from a single filament or threadlet of mat- 

 ter, which, by its efforts to procure nourishment, 

 lengthened out parts of its body into arms and other 

 members. For example, after this filament had im- 

 proved itself into an oyster, and been by chance left 

 dry by the ebbing of the tide, its efforts to reach the 

 water again expanded the parts nearest to the sea in- 

 to arms and legs. If it tried to rise from its native 

 rocks, the efforts produced wings, and it became an 

 insect, which in due course of time improved itself 

 by fresh efforts till it became a bird, the more perfect 

 members being always hereditarily transmitted to the 

 progeny. The different forms of the bills of birds, 

 whether hooked, broad, or long, were, he says, gradu- 

 ally acquired by the perpetual endeavours of the crea- 

 tures to supply their wants. The long-legged water- 



* Multaque nunc etiam existunt animalia terris, 

 Imbribus et calido soils concreta vapore. 



JDe Nat. Rer. v, 795. 



t Robinet, Consid. Philosophiques dela Gradation Naturelle 

 <Jes Formes de 1'Etre. Paris, 1768. 



