NO EQUIVOCAL GENERATION. 253 



itself the manner of its working, is yet as clearly de- 

 monstrated in the smallest individual as in the countless 

 multitude of the whole, tt avails nothing against this 

 simple and satisfactory hypothesis, to point to the 

 successive developement of parts, and the metamor- 

 phoses of form and colour, which organized beings 

 undergo ; because, as we find that the more minute - 

 the more lost to observation the germ is, the more 

 energetic is the life which it contains, if it be placed 

 in those circumstances that are calculated for calling 

 that life into action ; so we may infer, that the ex- 

 istence of the future oak, in its unmatured acorn in 

 the incipient bud of the autumn, has all the parts of a 

 perfect oak in principle, and wants only that fecundation, 

 which is an universal law of animal and vegetable life, 

 in all cases where the unhatched egg or the ungermi- 

 nated seed, can exist separately from its parent, and 

 yet retain its vital energy. 



Any other view of the matter than this, involves him 

 who takes it in endless perplexities, as supplemental 

 powers must constantly be invented to bring about the 

 changes which the being undergoes in the course of its 

 developed existence ; and before we can get a butterfly 

 or a moth through all its stages, we must have recourse 

 to a number of successive agents, each of them invested 

 with the power of Deity, of giving a new law of life 

 and growth to the works of God. 



But when we listen to the joint voices of reason 

 and Holy Writ, and confess that the whole of the 

 creatures endowed with all the powers of action 

 and continuation, and having the range within which 

 these could operate meted out to them by Him who 



