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132 A DISCOURSE 



BOOK II. which, passing silently through ponds and other receptacles, is exposed to 

 ^""^^'^'^ tlie sun and air. This approaches nearest to that of rain dropping from 

 the uberous cloud, and is certainly the most natural and nursing. As to 

 the quantity, some plants requh'e plentiful "watering, others rather often, 

 than all at once ; all of them sucking it in by the roots for the most part, 

 ^N'hich are their mouths, and carrying it thence through aU the canals, 



less, and consequent!}', highly unworthy of the Supreme Being, to have created so many and 

 so amazingly curious vessels for the preparation of the seed ; for, in that case, putrefaction 

 would be equivalent to creation. And if very minute insects and other animals could be 

 produced from putrefaction, and hatched by the heat of the sun, why might not horses, 

 elephants, and other large animals, be produced in the same way ? For in large bodies the 

 mechanism is easier, as the matter is more manageable ; but in such minute insects, and, 

 as we may say, such nothings, what wisdom, what power, what inexplicable perfection is 

 displayed, since Nature is never more complete, than in her most minute works ! He must 

 be void of understanding who does not perceive the absurdity of equivocal generation, 

 when he sees a body made with such wonderful art, and adorned with so man}' thousand 

 pipes and canals, that no mechanic, even the most perfect of mortals, can find out all the 

 contrivance, much less imitate this wonderful fabric ; yet can, as it were by a wilful 

 mistake, say, that he believes all those tilings were made by a fortuitous and confused 

 concourse of atoms. For it would follow from hence, that a new species both of animals 

 and plants would always occur, neither of which we observe, or have any account of. — 

 In this case, too, there could be no arguing from the genera to the species. In a word, 

 there would be no such thing as. cei-tainty, but all confusion. Redi, having a' mind to 

 examine equivocal generation, put recent flesh into a glass vessel, covered with a very 

 thin linen cloth, and exposed it to the sun ; after a little time, he found that flies laid their 

 eggs upon the linen cloth ; but no maggots were produced in the flesh. We must not 

 conclude that insects are produced by equivocal generation, because we see many 

 thousands of them about pools and ditches, where the putrefying filth of those places 

 furnishes plentiful nourishment for them, which is the reason that their eggs are there 

 deposited. The Slapelia Hirsuta produces a flower that stinks like can-ion, for which reason 

 the flesh-flies, deceived by the smell, fill the whole flower fuU of their eggs, taking it for 

 putrid flesh. We have no reason to believe, what some have asserted, that wheat degene- 

 rates into barley, and barley into oats, and oats into brome-grass ; for every species 

 produceth its own like; nor was it ever known that the fierce eagle produced the timorous 

 dove. Having confuted equivocal generation, it will follow that every living thing is 

 produced by univocal generation, or from an egg. Now vegetables, we have already 

 proved, are endued with life, therefore they all proceed from eggs. And indeed the great 

 Hervey long ago maintained this doctrine, that every living thing derives its origin from 

 an egg. But some of the moderns have strenuously endeavoured to overthrow this opinion, 

 their cause being chiefly supported by such arguments as the following : If, say they, we 

 take a part from the root, and set it in the ground, it strikes root, and a new plant springs 

 up ,• again, if a polypus be cut into several parts, from each of these parts an entil e and 



