OF REPRODUCTION, &c. 17 



X 



his apparatus appears, at firft fight, to fuppcfe 

 a profufion of expence. Such magniiicence, 

 however, is not imcommon in Nature. It is dif- 

 cernible even in the more common and inferior 

 fpccies, as in worms, polypi, ehns, willows, 

 and many other plants and infedls, every part of 

 which contains a whole, and, in order to become' 

 a plant or an infed:, requires only to be unfold- 

 ed or expanded. Confidering organized bodies 

 under this point of view, an individual is a 

 whole uniformly conilruded in all parts, a col- 

 ledion of an infmite number of particles every 

 way fimilar, an aflemblage of germs or minute 

 individuals of the fame fpecies, which, in certain 

 circumftances, are capable of being expanded, 

 and of becoming new beings like thofe from 

 which they were originally feparated. 



This idea, when traced to the bottom, difco- 

 vers a relation between animals, vegetables, and 

 minerals, which we would not have fufpeded. 

 Salts, and fome other minerals, confift of parts 

 fimilar to one another, and to the whole. A 

 grain of fea- fait, as we diftindly perceive by the 

 microfcope, is a cube compofed of an infinite 

 number of (mailer cubes *, which, as we difco- 



VoL. li. B ver 



* Hac tam parvae quam magnac figurac (falium) ex magno 

 folum numero niinorum particularum, quae eaaJem figuram 

 habent, funt conflatae, ficuti mihi faepc licuit oblervare, cum 

 aquam marinam aut communem in qua fal commune liqualum 

 crat, iutucor per microfcopium, quod ex ea proueunt elegantes, 

 parvae, ac quadrangularcs iigurae adco exiguae, ut millf carum 



myriades 



