98 EXAMINATION OF 



experiments. He has reprefented them in a 

 manner the moft plaufible and infinuating. He 

 appears to have repeated thenrt often, and to have 

 taken every neceflfary precaution to avoid fallacy 

 and deception ; and of courfe we are led tO' ■ 

 think that he has feen every thing which poffi- 

 bly could be difcovered. Uncertainty and ob- 

 fcurity, however, are perceptible in his defcrip- 

 tions. His obfervations are related from memo- 

 ry ; and he feenis, though he often maintains 

 the contrary, to have made Ariftotle, more than 

 experience, his guide ; for he has feen every 

 thinf^ in eggs, and very little more than was 

 mentioned by that philofopher. That the moft 

 material of his obfervations were made long be- 

 fore his own time, we fhall be convinced by at- 

 tending to what follows. 



Ariftotle knew, that the cords [chahzae] \u 

 eggs were of no ufe in the generation of the 

 chick: ' Quae ad ptincipium lutei grandlnes 

 * haerent, nif conferunt ad generationem, ut qui- 

 *" dam fufpicantur *.' Parifanus, Volcher Goiter, 

 Aquapendente, Sec. had' remarked the fmall ci- 

 catrice, as well as Harvey. Aquapendente be- 

 lieved it to be of no ufe ; but Parifanus main- 

 tained that it was formed by the male femen, 

 or, at leaft, that the white point in the middle 

 of the cicatrice was the femen of the male, and 

 that it was the rudiments of the foetus. * Eftque/ 

 fays he, * illud galli femen alba et tenuiflima tu- 



' Dies 



* Hlft. Anim. lib. 6. cap. z. 



