298 OF THE FORMATION 



which he aiTures us, that nuns, though ftridly 

 cloiftered, rometimes produce moles : And why 

 fhould this be impoffihle, fince hens produce eggs 

 without any communication with the cock, and 

 fince we find, in the cicatrices of thefe eggs, in- 

 ilead of a chicken, a mole with its appendages? 

 The analogy here is fufficiently ftrong to make 

 us at leaft fufpend a rafh determination. What- 

 ever be in this, it is certain, that a mixture of 

 the two fluids is necefTary for the formation of 

 a foetus, and that this mixture cannot be pro- 

 perlv effedled but in the uterus, or in the Fallo- 

 pian tubes, where anatomifts have fometimes dif- 

 covered foetufes : And it is natural to imagine, 

 that thofe which have been found in the cavity 

 of the abdomen, have efcaped by the extremity 

 of the tube, or by fome accidental rupture of the 

 uterus ; and that they never fall into the abdo- 

 men from the ovarium, becaufe I think it next 

 to impolTible that the feminal fluid fhould afcend 

 fo far. Leeuwenhoek has computed the motion 

 of his pretended fpermatic animals to be four 

 or five inches in 40 minutes-; fo that, if the 

 whole fluid moved at this rate, in an hour or 

 two the animalcules might proceed from the va- 

 gina into the uterus, from the uterus into the 

 Fallopian tubes, and from the Fallopian tubes 

 into the ovaria. But, how is it poihble to con- 

 ceive, that the organic particles, whofe motion 

 ceafes whenever they are deprived of the fluid 

 part of the femen, lliould arrive at the ovarium, 



uulefs 



