[oS-V] . 
extremely fimple in their Compofition $ being per- 
haps little more than elaftic Springs more or lets com- 
prefs'd, more or lefs diverfify'd in the Diredion of 
their Force. He thought the Calamary Machines I 
obfervcd fome time ago to be ftrong Proofs of his 
Opinion 5 and the fpermatic Animalcules to be Ma- 
chines, or organical Parts like thefe. 
$ 19. For my own part, I was then, as I had 
been before, fo far of his Opinion, as to think there 
were compound Bodies in Nature, not riling above 
the Condition of Machines, which yet might feem to 
be alive, and fpontaneous in their Motions ; fuch as ' 
the calamary Machines would certainly appear, if they 
were render'd fo diminutive as to conceal their Me- 
chanil'm, and fuch I then fufpeded the fpermatic 
Animals to be: for Motion in general was but an 
equivocal Argument, and did not neceflarily imply 
Life in the common Acceptation of that Term 
When, fora further Proof, 1 inftanced Mr. Hill’s 
Seed-Infufion, wherein many Bodies were feen to 
move in a. manner very different from Atoms in a 
fermenting Liquid, and yet not fo fcemingly fpon- 
taneous as microfcopical Animalcules, he added, 
that in his Syftem it muff be fo 5 that thefe were 
detached organical Parts, and that the Seeds, and 
particularly the Germs of Seeds in Plants, muff ne- 
ceflarily abound with them more than any other Sub- 
fiances. Thus did our Enquiry commence upon Seed- 
Infufions, from a Defire Mr. de Buffon had to find 
out the organical Parts, and I, if poflible, to difeo- 
ver which among thefe moving Bodies were Briefly 
to be look'd upon as Animals, and which to be ac- 
counted mere Machines. In the Courfe of this 
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