192 EXPERIMENTS, &c. 



their figure, efpecially when tbe liquor began to 

 evaporate *. 



On all thefe accounts, Mr Needham conjec- 

 tured, that the pretended Ipermatic animals were 

 only a kind of natural machines, bodies much 

 more fimply organized than thofe of real ani- 

 mals. I examined the machines of the calmar 

 along with hira, and the reader may be afTured 

 that his defcription of them 15 both exad: and 

 faithful. His experiments, therefore, demon- 

 X ftrate, that the feminal fluid confifts of particles 

 in queft of organization ; that, in fad, it pro- 

 duces organized bodies ; but that thefe bodies are 

 not animals, nor fimilar to the individual which 

 produces them, h is indeed, probable, that 

 thefe organized bodies are only a kind of inftru- 

 ments for perfeding the femen, and beftowing 

 on it an adive force ; and that it is by their in- 

 ternal adion that they intimately penetrate the 

 feminal fluid of the female. 



CHAP, 



* See Leeiiweiih. Arc. nat. p. 306. 509, p.nd 319, 



