148 PARASITIC ANIMALS. 



such unlooked-for situations ; and one of the theories 

 advocated by men of high attainments, is that of 

 " equivocal or spontaneous generation ;" in other 

 words, that life is the result of certain combinations 

 of matter a most strange supposition ; or that 

 they are developed from atoms of matter collected 

 together, which assume vitality and a definite form, 

 as the ancients believed that bees were produced 

 from the blood or flesh of slaughtered oxen, when 

 undergoing the process of decomposition,* and that 

 reptiles were formed from the mud of the river 

 Nile, by the agency of the beams of the sun. 



Such a theory is to cut and not untie the Gordian 

 knot ; it is unworthy of science ; it is a blot on the 

 page of truth. Great ignorance of the laws of 

 Nature may be pleaded as an excuse for the ancients, 

 but in these days, when the light of science burns 

 brightly, and old errors are effaced, it seems strange 

 that men, calling themselves philosophers, should 

 have recourse to such a system. Yet so it is. 

 Among those who advocate the spontaneous gene- 

 ration of organic beings, is to be ranked Dr. Weis- 

 senborn, of Weimar, in Germany, who has recently 

 published a paper on the spontaneous generation of 

 certain plants, peculiar to snow, which he commences 

 by observing that, " Although the recent discoveries 

 of professor Ehrenberg appear little favourable to 

 the casual production of organic beings at the pre- 

 sent period, yet they do not in the least affect the 

 * Virgil, Georg. lib. iv. line 281, et seq. 



