GENERATION OF ANIMALS. 267 



ral principle of reprodudion, the manner of its 

 union, and the combinations it forms, muft be 

 infinitely varied, that the whole may become the 

 fources of new productions. My experiments 

 clearly demonftrate, that there are no pre-exift- 

 ing germs, and that the generation of animals 

 and vegetables is not univocal. There are, per- 

 haps, as many beings, which either live or vege- 

 tate, produced by a fortuitous aflemblage of or- 

 ganic particles, as by a conftant and fucceffive 

 generation. It is to fuch produdions that we 

 ought to apply the axiom of the ancients. Cor- 

 ruptio unius, gencratio alterius. The corruption 

 and refolution of animals and vegetables pro- 

 duce an infinite variety of organized bodies ; 

 Some of them, as thofe of the calmar, are only 

 a kind of machines, which, though exceedingly 

 fmiple, are very adive. Others, as the fper- 

 matic animalcules, feem to imitate the move- 

 ments of animals. Others refemble vegetables 

 in their manner of growth and expanfion. There 

 are others, as thofe of blighted wheat, which, at 

 plealure, can be made alternately to live or to die ; 

 and it is difficult to know to what they fliould 

 be compared. There are ftill others, and in great 

 numbers, which are at firll a kind of vegetables, 

 then become a fpecies of animals, and again 

 return alternately to their vegetable ftate. The 

 more we examine this fpecies of organized bo- 

 dies, we fliall probably difcovcr greater and more 

 lingular varieties of them, in proportion as they 



are 



