The 
he therefore deferves not only our praifes, but 
thofe of all mankind; andthe candid manner 
in which he ufually offers his opinions, is yet 
more praife-worthy ; for he thus moft ingenu- 
oufly {peaks, in the preface to that perfor- 
mance I have been juft now mentioning: 
“‘ Therefore, (generous reader) I do not ex- 
‘© pect you fhould take my word as to the man- 
*‘ner in which the generation of animals is 
** performed: I appeal to your own eyes as 
** witnefles and judges of what I advance, For 
** as all perfect {cience is built upon fuch prin- 
‘* ciples, as are derived from the obfervations 
“of fenfe; you ought ftrenuoufly to endea- 
“* your, if you have a mind to become tho- 
“roughly acquainted with what relates to ani- 
** mals, to attain this knowledge, by frequent 
“* difleGtions of them. If you proceed other- 
“* wife, you can only acquire a fpecious and 
** wavering opinion, but no certain and folid 
* {ctence?? . 
To conclude, it is not our intention to re- 
fute one by one, in this place, all this ingeni- 
ous but miftaken author’s propofitions; feeing 
this is abundantly done already, by the evident 
truths we have produced ; neither will the dig- 
nity of fo great a name, eafily admit of fuch 
a cenfure, (in abftaining from which, we only 
follow the example himfelf has given us in 
the cafe of that famous anatomift Fabricius ab 
Aquapendento, whom he fpares in the fame 
‘manner, and onthe fame account.) Never- 
thelefs, I cannot avoid again inculcating at 
leaft one principle; that whereas the Nymph 
is indeed the animal itfelf, and by no means 
the egg, the whole and only mutation which 
happens here, is nothing more than a flow 
evaporation of the fuperfluous moifture; for 
by this all Nymphs are neceflarily changed. 
Thus it happens, that during this evapora- 
tion, before explained in the Nymph of the 
Bee, the limbs which were before tender, weak, 
and fluid like water, are freed from the fuper- 
fluous moifture which deprived them of mo- 
tion; whereby the latent infect is enabled to 
force its exterior covering, and, having caft it 
off as the Bee does, or forfaken it as is done 
by the Butterfly, to make ufe of the moifture 
which remains, to expand its wings and other 
parts. . 
The Nymph therefore, during the firft days 
of its change, refembles a man who has loft 
the ufe of his limbs, by a colleétion of faline 
or other humours about his joints, and does 
not recover them, till fuch hurtful moifture is 
diflipated by nature, or by art. Nature and art 
have the fame effect upon tunaified members, 
and upon what we call Nymphs; {0 that on 
evaporating the {uperfluous humidity of thefe 
laft, by the means of nature, or by an artificial 
heat, they may be brought forth in the form 
of infects, even in the depth of winter. 
In fine, as it is utterly erroneous to {uppofe, 
that the whole mafs of the Worm is transformed 
into the Nymph, and after this the Nymph 
into a winged land or water animal ; fo, onthe 
shine) 2,6) aR PY 
ot TAN‘8 & @T S. 13 
other hand, nothing is more certain, than that 
all the limbs of the Butterfly, the common 
Fly, and fuch other infects, do actually grow in 
the Worm, in the fame manner asthe limbs of 
other animals: fo that nothing can be more 
repugnant to truth, or be fo little fupportable 
by any folid arguments, as this notion of a 
metamorphofis : for it is not in the Nymph 
alone, but in the very Worm, or Caterpillar : 
Tab. XXXVI. fig. 11. 111. and rv. we can lay 
before the eye all the parts of the future in- 
fect. Thofe parts are by no means generated 
fuddenly and all at once, as has been fuppofed, 
but grow leifurely one after another, till all of 
them having arrived at a ftate of perfection, 
the Worm gives itfelf motion, and breaks its 
fkin; the inclofed limbs having generated by 
degrees, from the motion of the moifture, and 
their own contraction, {well and eafily cafts 
its {kin, and fuddenly difclofes all its limbs to 
our view. In this inflation, (fhooting out, 
budding, or vegetation; and, as it were, 
changing of the nutriment of the new limbs, 
which have gradually grown, or have been pro- 
duced by an epigenefis, or accretion of the 
parts, and not at all by a metamorphofis) con- 
fifts the fole foundation of all the changes which 
we remark in infects. We call the creature in 
the ftate of this natural mutation a Nymph, 
becaufe this kind of infe@t, on cafting its skin, 
may be faid to refemble a bride or Nymph, 
who, in many countries, leifurely prepares and 
adorns her perfon for her intended fpoufe. But 
we utterly deny what Goedaert has in feveral 
places advanced, that there is any refemblance 
between the Nymph and an infant in its 
{wathing clothes; as alfo its likenefs to any 
other figure than that of the future infe&t; for 
the Nymph not only reprefents clearly and di- 
ftinctly all the parts of the future infeét, but 
is, in reality, the infect itfelf; and this, not 
dead or buried, but, as Libavius has al- 
ready obferved of the Necydalis, actually living 
and feeling, though unable to give any indica- 
tions of life, except by the motion of its tail 
or belly ; for in many we find thefe parts are 
not affected with any moifture, nor undergo 
any change, but what arifes from the cafting off 
a very thin skin, fo that they cannot lofe their 
former power to move. 
Allowing therefore as a certain truth, as it 
really is, what has been already advanced in 
this work concerning infe@ts, not only all that 
Harvey fays upon the fame fubjeét, in the ex- 
tracts we have given, and all the errors that 
flow from thence, fall to the ground; but 
likewife that common opinion of philofophers, 
that the generation of infe@s is fortuitous, and 
which Goedaert’s editors feem to have fathered, 
or rather to have forced upon him, appears 
utterly groundlefs ; feeing it has no other foun- 
dation, than that idle and imaginary metamor- 
phofis, which neither exifts in nature, nor can 
fairly be deduced from Harvey’s (in many 
places) contradictory arguments. This great 
man muft have eafily feen the weaknefs of his 
E own 
