6 Additional Notes. 



anthers, and the others those of the stigmas, in the sexual organs 

 of vegetables; which is spoken of at large in Phytologia, Sect. VII. 

 and in Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. XXXIX. 8. of the third edition, in 

 octavo; where it is likewise shown, that none of these parts which are 

 deposited beneath the cuticle of the tree, is in itself a complete vege- 

 table embryon, but that they form one by their reciprocal conjunction. 

 So in the sexual reproduction of animals, certain parts separated 

 from the living organs, and floating in the blood, are arrested by the 

 sexual glands of the female, and others by those of the male. Of 

 these none are complete embryon animals, but form an embryon by 

 their reciprocal conjunction. 



There hence appears to be an analogy between generation and nu- 

 trition, as one is the production of new organization, and the other 

 the restoration of that which previously existed; and which may 

 therefore be supposed to require materials somewhat similar. Now 

 the food taken up by animal lacteals is previously prepared by the 

 chemical process of digestion in the stomach; but that which is taken 

 up by vegetable lacteals, is prepared by chemical dissolution of organic 

 matter beneath the surface of the earth. Thus the particles, which 

 form generated animal embryons, are prepared from dead organic 

 matter by the chemico-animal processes of sanguification and of secre- 

 tion; while those which foi - m spontaneous microscopic animals or 

 microscopic vegetables are prepared by chemical dissolutions and new 

 combinations of organic matter in watery fluids with sufficient warmth. 

 It may be here added, that the production and properties of some 

 kinds of inanimate matter, are almost as difficult to comprehend as 

 those of the simplest degrees of animation. Thus the elastic gum, 

 or caoutchouc, and some fossile bitumens, when drawn out to a great 

 length, contract themselves by their elasticity, like an animal fibre 

 by stimulus. The laws of action of these, and all other elastic bodies, 

 are not yet understood ; as the laws of the attraction of cohesion, to 

 produce these effects, must be very different from tho.se of general 

 attraction, since the farther the particles of elastic bodies are drawn 

 from each other till they separate, the stronger they .seem to attract; 

 and the nearer they are pressed together, the more they seem to 

 repel; as in bending a spring, or in extending a piece of elastic gum; 



