240 OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEITY. 
would run into different combinations, and replenish the 
waste with new species of organized substances. 
Is there any history to countenance this notion? Is it 
known, that any destruction has been so repaired? any 
desert thus repeopled? 
So far as I remember, the only natural appearance men¬ 
tioned by our author, by way of fact whereon to build his 
hypothesis, the only support on which it rests, is the forma¬ 
tion of worms in the intestines of animals, which is here 
ascribed to the coalition of superabundant organic parti¬ 
cles, floating about in the first passages; and which have 
combined themselves into these simple animal forms, for 
want of internal moulds, or of vacancies in those moulds, 
into which they might be received. The thing referred to, 
is rather a species of facts, than a single fact; as some 
other cases may, with equal reason, be included under it. 
But to make it a fact at all, or in any sort applicable to 
the question, we must begin with asserting an equivocal 
generation, contrary to analogy, and without necessity: 
contrary to an analogy, which accompanies us to the very 
limits of our knowledge or inquiries; for wherever, either 
in plants or animals, we are able to examine the subject, 
we find procreation from a parent form: without necessity; 
for I apprehend that it is seldom difficult to suggest me¬ 
thods, by which the eggs, or spawn, or yet invisible rudi¬ 
ments of these vermin, may have obtained a passage into 
the cavities in which they are found.* Add to this, that 
their constancy to their species , which, I believe, is as regu¬ 
lar in these as in the other vermes, decides the question 
against our philosopher, if in truth any question remained 
upon the subject. 
lastly; these wonder-working instruments, these ‘ ‘ in¬ 
ternal moulds,” what are they after all? what, when exam¬ 
ined, but a name without signification; unintelligible, if not 
self-contradictory; at the best, differing in nothing from the 
“essential forms” of the Greek philosophy? One short 
sentence of Buffon’s work exhibits his scheme as follows: 
“When this nutritious and prolific matter, which is diffus¬ 
ed throughout all nature, passes through the internal mould 
of an animal or vegetable, and finds a proper matrix, or re¬ 
ceptacle, it gives rise to an animal or vegetable of the same 
species.” Does any reader annex a meaning to the expres- 
* I trust I may be excused for not citing, as another fact which is to 
confirm the hypothesis, a grave assertion of this writer, that the branch¬ 
es of trees upon which the stag feeds, break out again in his horni 
Such facts merit no discussion. 
