110 PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS ON THE 



gelatinous matter. From this Mr. Weekes observed one of 

 the insects in the very act of emerging, immediately after 

 which it ascended to the surface of the fluid, and sought 

 concealment in an obscure corner of the apparatus. The 

 insects produced by both experimentalists seem to have been 

 the same, a species of acarus, minute and semi-transparent, 

 and furnished with long bristles, which can only be seen by 

 the aid of the microscope. It is worthy of remark, that some 

 of these insects, soon after their existence had commenced, 

 were found to be likely to extend their species. They were 

 sometimes observed to go back to the fluid to feed, and occa- 

 sionally they devoured each other. ( 53 ) 



The reception of novelties in science must ever be regu- 

 lated very much by the amount of kindred or relative pheno- 

 mena which the public mind already possesses and acknow- 

 ledges, to which the new can be assimilated. A novelty, 

 however true, if there be no received truths with which it can 

 be shown in harmonious relation, has little chance of a 

 favourable hearing. In fact, as has been often observed, there 

 is a measure of incredulity from our ignorance as well as 

 from our knowledge, and if the most distinguished philosopher 

 three hundred years ago had ventured to develop any striking 

 new fact which only could harmonize with the as yet un- 

 known Copernican solar system, we cannot doubt that it 

 would have been universally scoffed at in the scientific world, 

 such as it then was, or, at the best, interpreted in a thousand 

 wrong ways in conformity with ideas already familiar. The 

 experiments above described, finding a public mind which 

 had never discovered a fact or conceived an idea at all analo- 

 gous, were of course ungraciously received. It was held to 

 be impious even to surmise that animals could have been 

 formed through any instrumentality of an apparatus devised 

 by human skill. The more likely account of the phenomena 

 was said to be, that the insects were only developed from 

 ova, resting either in the fluid, or in the wooden frame on 

 which the experiments took place. On these objections 

 the following remarks may be made. The supposition of 

 impiety arises from an entire misconception of what is 



