CREATION OF ANIMALS. 13 



Besides those insects of a disreputable name 1 

 which, under more than one form, inhabit his 

 person externally ; and those that, burying them- 

 selves in his flesh, annoy him and produce cuta- 

 neous diseases, 2 a whole host of others attack 

 him internally, and sometimes fatally. Can we 

 believe that man, in his pristine state of glory, 

 and beauty, and dignity, could be the receptacle 

 and the prey of these unclean and disgusting 

 creatures? This is surely altogether incredible, 

 I had almost said impossible. And we must 

 either believe, with Le Clerc and Bonnet, that 

 all those worms now infesting our intestines ex- 

 isted in Adam before his fall, only under the 

 form of eggs, which did not hatch till after that 

 sad event : or that these eggs were dispersed in 

 the air, in the water, and in various aliments, and 

 so were ready to hatch when they met with their 

 destined habitation : or, as some parasities are 

 found in the earth, 3 or the water, 4 as well as in the 

 human species, that they are in general formed 

 for living in different stations : 5 or, lastly, that 

 they were created subsequently to the fall of 

 Adam, not immediately or all at once, but when 

 occasions called for such expressions of the divine 

 displeasure. 



With respect to the first of these hypotheses, 



1 Pediculi. 2 Sarcoptes Scabiei, Pulex penetrans, &c. 

 3 Lumbricus. 4 Gordius aquaticus. 



5 See Introd. to Ent. iv. 229. 



