ee 
108 Dr. Drummond on the Equivocal Generation of Entozoa. 
And why should we have recourse to this theory of equivo- 
cal generation in order to account for the formation of the 
Entozoa? Precisely for the same reason that our progenitors 
indulged in the erroneous notions alluded to. They cherished 
the absurdity, because they were ignorant of the truth. They 
did not know that insect ova were hatched into maggots, and 
that maggots change into flies; and as the place of breeding 
of the barnacle was not known, they were determined to give 
it some origin, and they did so on grounds just as valid as 
those on which some modern physiologists rest the sponta- 
neous origin of entozoic worms. ‘The tentacula of the Lepas 
resemble feathers; why then should the shell not grow up to 
be a goose? An effused clot of lymph will become organized ; 
why then should it not grow into a Tape-worm? The rea- 
soning on the one side is just as good as on the other; but we 
may hope that a time will come when we shall have as direct 
proof of the origin of the entozoon as we have of that of the 
barnacle. At present, it is true, we are completely in the dark 
respecting the origin of worms in the interior of other animals ; 
but it is better, more philosophical, more like genuine dis- 
ciples of truth, to confess our ignorance, than to adopt a theory 
which is in direct opposition to what occurs in every depart- 
ment of organized nature with which we are properly ac- 
quainted. 
For my own part, I can no more conceive that Entozoa are 
the creatures of chance than the animals they inhabit ; though 
as to the manner of their origin, of which so little as yet is 
known, I pretend to go no further than is expressed in the 
old distich,— 
The things we know are neither strange nor rare, 
But wonder how the devil they got there. 
Got there as they will, however, their possession of a di- 
stinct and independent. life, their having sensation, voluntary 
motion, generative organs and functions, a digestive apparatus 
and other attributes of animals, while they exhibit the most 
minute, elaborate and exquisite workmanship, and also dis- 
play the most unquestionable proofs of their whole composi- 
tion, both general and partial, having been fabricated with the 
utmost wisdom and adaptation to their mode of life, show as 
clearly as if the proofs were written with a sunbeam, that they 
cannot be beings of fortuitous origin; that they are the off- 
spring and work of the same Almighty hand which formed all 
the other races of animated being; and that to suppose their 
admirable formation to be the result of a kind of chance, is to 
impart to unintelligent matter that power and wien which 
belong only to the “Deity himself. 
