therto every Step feerned eafy and natural, if not 
too clofely examined ; the Inquifitive were con- 
ducted as high as their Curiofity could promifej and 
we might have expected, that Philofophers Ihould 
have hopp’d here 3 but there is no End of rcafon- 
ing by Analogy. 
§ 8. No Body of Men fo ftri&ly deferves the 
Name of a Republic as that of the Learned does : 
Every one is paflionately fond of adding to the 
common Stock, and claims nothing in Return, but 
the Name and Merit of having enrich’d it 5 yet this 
Paflion is often fo violent, that bafe Metals are 
miftaken for Gold, and Pebbles for Diamonds. It is 
not therefore Matter of much Surprize, if fome have 
carried the imaginary Scene yet farther 3 and, hill pro- 
ceeding by Analogy, have fuppofed that the reticular 
Expanfion, obferved in the Womb of Does fome 
Days after Copulation, by Harvey , and lince him, 
in other impregnated Females, was nothing more 
than the inverting Web, fpun by the fpermatic Ani- 
mal before it enter’d the chryfalidal State, and pre- 
paratory to its Tranfuion from one Form to ano- 
ther. Certainly thefe Authors never confider’d the 
immenfe Difproportion, between the great Expan- 
fion of this Web and the inconceivable Minute- 
nefs of the Animalcule j otherwife it had appeared 
as rational to fuppofe, that an Alpine Mountain 
could have been rear’d in a few Days by a Tingle 
Emmet fuccefllvcly pileing one Grain of Sand upon 
another. Nothing now Teem’d wanting to com- 
plete this Syftem, and place it above all Exception, 
but ocular Demonllration, if it might poflibly be 
obtained, that the original Embryo was really con- 
tained 
