8 



A DISCOURSE 



TROD, nous, for the Birch, Alder, &c. The more lofty, poor, and perflatile, for 

 Yew, Juniper, Box, and the like. And we read in the natural histories 

 of divers countries, that the Cedar, Palmetos, Queen-Pines, Ebony, Nut- 

 meg, Cinnamon, &ic. for trees ; the Tulip, Hyacinth, Crocus, &c. for 

 flowers ; are sometimes, and in some regions, Aborigines, descended 

 immediately from the genius of the soils, climate, sun, shade, air, winds, 

 the water, nitrous salts, rocks, banks, shores, and (like the Negroes-heads 

 in Barbadoes) as some imagine, even without seed, or at least any perceptible 

 rudiment. Let it not then be imputed an impertinent digression, if, 

 upon this occasion of spontaneous and sequivocal productions % we men- 



in corn ; but where the Pitch-tree is seen, the land is barren. Vol. I. p. 232. — And 

 Dr. Douglas, in his " Historical and Political Summary of the British Settlements in 

 North America," says, that the quality of the lands in New England is thus known by the 

 produce. " In the best lands are Chestnuts and Walnuts, next is Beech and White Oak, 

 lower is Fir, then Pitch Pines, then Whortles, or Huckleberry Plains ; lastly, some marshy 

 Shrubs, low and imperfect, being the lowest degree of Suffrutex vegetation." Vol. II. p. ^15. 



^ It is no wonder that some should suppose vegetables capable of being produced with- 

 out their parent seeds, when it was once held as a reasonable doctrine that animals, such 

 as maggots, flies, &c. might be generated by putrefaction. We are taught by glasses, that 

 all animals, however minute, are organized ; and we have convincing proofs that they are 

 also regulated by the same general laws that direct the ceconomy of the larger animals. 

 Could putrefaction give birth to an organized animal, the order of Nature, established at 

 the begitming of the world, would by this time have been overturned, and scarce one 

 species of animals or plants which were the objects of Solomon's attention, would at this 

 day be visible upon the face of the earth. A Horse might as well spring from a Dunghill, 

 as a Fly ; and the brawny Oak might as readily be produced by a ferment in the earth, as 

 the Trefoil and Ragweed described by Mr. Evelyn. Before putrefaction can produce the 

 greater wonder, it must be able to produce the lesser ; and who ever saw a repeating 

 watch, or a musical clock, created by the ferment of a dunghill ! 



— — ^— — — nil semine egeret: 



E mare primum liomines, e terra posset oriri 

 Squammigerum genus, et volucres ; erumpere coelo 

 Armenta, atqiie alise pecudes ; genus omne ferarum 

 In'certo partu culta, ac deserta teneret: 

 Nec fructus iidem arboribus constare solerent, 



Sed mutarentur: ferre omnes omnia possent. lucret. lib. i. 1.162. 



This doctrine of spontaneous, or equivocal generation, was originally invented in Egypt, 

 with a view to solve the pha?nomenon of the numerous swarms of flies and insects that 

 were generated upon the surface of the mud left by the waters of the Nile. 



