pear before us in every feed, which is large enough to be viewed clearly, it would amount to almost a madness to deny their existence in the most minute, only because we may not have the power to fee them; efpecially too fince in every part of the courfe of their growth, fructification, &c. as well as propagation, there appears to be no difference between them and thofe whofe organizations are visible. There are multitudes of feeds which produce very large plants, and yet, from their minuteness, appear only like duft, as those of the vanelloes; and a vast number which almost escape our fight, without the help of a good microscope, as the ferns; and yet these have their beauteous peculiar forms and marks, and, without the leaft doubt, their organizations, as well as their other natural fubftances. Now the question is, from what are these organizations produced? And in this lies the whole mystery, which, when made plain to every understanding, will remove thofe clouds that hitherto have obfcured the knowledge, we ought to have had of this great phænomenon long ago; and render all formier conjectures, from the beginning to this day trivial and weak; and alfo fhew, that this part of the works of the great God, how marvellous foever, are to be understood, and are easy and simple to those who can endeavour to explore them with minds free from corruption and prejudice; viewing things as they really are, and not obfcuring them with vain conjectures and hypothefes, which lead to an infinity of errors, and thence to the utmost impiety; for thefe things are well within the sphere of our understanding: thus far we are permitted to go, and these are the means by which we come to the knowledge of the true God and maker of all things. • But, to begin the explanation of our own thoughts about it; that is, to know how every animal brings forth fresh animals, and every tree or plant brings forth trees or plants after their kinds; we will take into our view a tree and an animal, and confider them alternately through every stage, from their eggs to their utmoft growth; and, in fpight of obítinacy itself, we shall fee exactly the fame plan pursued by nature, in the production and progress of both. 'Let us then behold a young tree, and obferve how it pushes forth its leaves and flowers; it is, while young, to be accounted but imperfect; and is only completed, when it has extruded an entire fet of boughs and branches; after which it may grow larger, tho' not more complete. One part is explicated regularly after another, from the first shoot till it comes to perfection; which we shall further explain here Bb3 hereafter; and when it has grown thus far, it is then, and not before, capable of producing feeds, containing the rudiments and fubftances of other trees like itself. The fibres of its general organization are ordained to grow into little nodes or implications, fome to form leaves, fome the calyx, fome the petals, fome the pistil and utriculus, fome again the little ova or feeds; each growing from its own pedicle, even the most minute as well as the greateft, and in whatsoever number contained in the uterus of the tree or plant; and for the male parts, other fibres are terminated into ftamina, and from these again other fibres are terminated into apices; and, again from thefe, others terminate into the minute grains commonly called the farina fœcundans; each little grain growing upon its own pedicle, no otherwife than we fee the leaves of trees or their fruits growing, and in due time falling off, that the ufes for which they were first defigned fhould be fulfilled. Exactly in this manner, we fee an animal, which, while it is young, is ftill imperfect, approaching more and more to a degree of perfection till it is entirely explicated, and grown complete in every organ; each organ, whether internal or external, being but the continuation or termination of the general organization, according to the neceffity and ufe of each; and thus, after its completion, it may grow larger, tho' not more perfect. And, when it has proceeded in its growth thus far, each female is then, and not before, capable of producing its ova or feeds from the ovaria, each arifing from, and being a continuation of, the general organization, growing upon its own pedicle, in order to drop off in due time, to answer the ends for which it was made; and each male, at this state of perfection, and not before, being capable of producing from itself the foecundating matter neceflary for the propagation of other animals of its own kind. The doctor, in this place, offers fome reasons why animals have not a power in themfelves, of propagating their own fpecies, as fome of the vegetables have; and then proceeds to fhew how perfect trees or plants are caufed to produce others of their kind, and how perfect animals are caufed to produce their natural offspring. Let us then again, fays he, take a view of a tree or plant grown up fo perfectly, as to begin putting forth its parts for fructification: let us now obferve the apices, crowning the ftamina, loaden with the globules of the farina, the pulpy contents of each globule being the vehicle to an ex alted alted fluid, which we shall here call the impregnating effluvium; which globule is deftined to convey it from its native place to one of the papilla of the piftil. Let us confider the utriculus now, and not before, filled with green, foft and imperfect feeds, juft in a condition to receive the impregnation from the effluvium of the globule of the farina; which, if they were at this time more hard and perfect, they would be utterly incapable of, and come to nothing; containing their fluids, which afterwards become a hard parenchyma to each, and the little organizations grow. ing, as we have faid juft now, and bearing but a small proportion of the whole feed, and fo blended and inveloped in thefe fubftances, as by no means to be yet investigated. This, perhaps, might have given occafion to that ingenious and indefatigable cbferver mr. Turbervil Needham to conclude that no germ was ever to be found in the uterus, till after the globule had impregnated it, and to fome others; from whence this gentleman (to whom the world is much obliged for his difcovery of the action of these little grains of the farina fœcundans, and which has added great strength to the fyftem I am endeavouring to fupport) thought that the pulpy fubftance of the globule, which I fay contains the foecundating effluvium produced the germ, and that it was not in the ovum or feed. This would indeed feem plaufible, with refpect to the analogy between animals and vegetables, if we could in any wife imagine the fpermatic animals were the origines of the former; but as we shall shew, hereafter, they cannot be fo, we must take the liberty of looking upon what these little grains contain to be no other than a pulpy fubftance, containing an aura or effluvium, which confifts of fuch particles as are capable of fertilizing or fœcundating the little organizations, now fufceptible of it, or, in other words, of adding to the organization its vegetive principle. 'If we have an eye to the condition of the feeds in the uterus, at the very time that the apices of the fame flower are loaden with the farina, it will be a means of abfolutely fhewing that the little organization is not, nor cannot be transmitted from the farina of these male parts, but is intrinfically in each feed in the uterus, growing regularly and gradually, as well as every other part, from the fame general organization; for at this time, all the parts of the uterus and feeds are green and spungy; capable of being only irrorated or bedewed by a very fubtile effluvium, to which alone they are pervious; and not in the leaft to a denfer Bb 4 fluid, fluid, nor indeed to any organization, tho' never so small ; having no cavity that might in any wife receive any foreign body; because the native organizations, together with all the fubftances naturally belonging to them are now, as a mafs, filled with a green juice ready to be impregnated by the effluvia, from the matter of the globules of farina, every feed being as it were in embrio at this time; and it is always a confiderable time after the farina has done its office, and the apices have all fallen off, that every feed comes to be difcerned as a diftinct body, fupported by its own pedicle,, and growing hard and compact in its receptacle, Let us again only confider, that the whole uterus, at the time of impregnation (in fome plants) is not within a hundreth part as large as when the feeds come to perfection, and that their growth afterwards is very great, We may truly affirm that the poppy-bead, which is a large body, when filled with its number of feeds, and dry, makes but a small show in the center of the flower, when it is furrounded by its ftamina and their apices, which is the only time of their impregnation. Let us afk whether fuch numbers of feeds were adventitious from without, all ranged in their beautiful order? Are the feeds of beans, peafe, and all other filiquofe plants adventitious bodies to the uterus of the flower, or do not the pods grow by their pedicles from the tree or plant; and do not the feeds in them grow from their pedicles, as well as the little organizations in those very feeds, which actually grow and receive nourishment from their pedicles alfo? And, in a word, is not this a more certain and fecure method of propagation, than to commit these things to the chance of being formed, as feveral authors would have the world believe; or, that the germ fhould be an adventitious body, arriving at the ovarium, when it is in no wife fit to receive fuch a body, nor any other fubftance but an effluvium capable of penetrating the whole fubftance, and confequently of meeting and impregnating the organization now ready for it. But the manner of the impregnation of the original organization of either animal or vegetable, that is, how they are affected by the feveral effluvia from the male feminal fubftances, muft ever remain myfterious and unknown.' Our author, in order to the illustration of his subject, introduces, in this place, a fhort accouut of the means made ufe of to propagate the dates among the Egyptians, Perfians, Arabians, and other eastern nations; and then gots on in the following manner. The analogy then, fays ays he, will run thus: In vegetables the male parts of the flower muft neceffarily fœcundate the female parts, in order to propagate the fucceffive tree or plant; otherwise it is well known nothing is produced. So alfo in animals, the male muft neceffarily foecundate the female, in order to propagate the fucceffive animal, otherwife nothing is propagated. In vegetables the farina is carried to the pistil of the flower lodged in the papilla leading to the uterus, where the tender feeds are now ready to be affected; they pafs down the tubes towards the feeds, till the narrowness of the tubes hinders their moving further; where they lie till the access of proper moisture caufes them to burft and eject, with fome force, their fœcundating matter upon the ovarium, and thereby qualify the feeds or ova to grow to further perfection from its effluvium. So, in animals, the penis of the male conveys into the vagina of the female the Spermatic matter, which is a glutinous fluid, and is the vehicle to the subtile effluvium which penetrates every part, until it reaches and bedews fuch ova as are mature enough for fœcundation, most commonly one, fometimes two, and rarely more. After this is done, the grofs injected matter is again rejected upon the first turn or other action of the female; and, thus, as the feminal matter in animals must neceffarily be ejected by the action of muscles, fo the feminal matter in vegetables is injected by means of a Springy texture in each grain of the farina, to be put in motion upon the first access of moisture, whereby the fubtiler part bedews the ovarium, and foecundates the feeds. In vegetables, as foon as the fœcundation is over, the feeds foon grow to their full perfection, all the male parts of the flower dry and wither away, the uterus becomes full of perfect feeds, all lying in their proper nidufes ; and, when arrived to their full limited fize, growing hard; the feeds at length drop from their pedicles, and lie concealed in the different places allotted them, in the pod or fruit; which pod, upon due maturity drops too from its place, and is then capable of answering all the purposes for which it was intended, and for further propagation in due time. In animals, foon after the foecundation is confummated, the little ovum, in the viviparous kinds, grows turgid, breaks from its hold, and is removed to the uterus through the fallopian tube, where it receives proper nourishment, till, growing ripe, it, in like manner, at length drops off from its place, and is capable of anfwering all the purposes for which it was intended, and for further propagation in due time; and, in the oviparous kinds, the little ovum, now fœcundated, |