I. pared for them, and such conveniences for the young to CHAP. suck it? How come they to run so naturally to their dams without any director, and to avoid such as would destroy them? What had the particles of matter to do in all this? If we go to insects; how came the silkworms to hatch their eggs when the mulberry-trees are ready for their food? the bees to come forth in May, when there is most plenty of dew? the wasps near autumn, when the fruit is grown ripe to support them? How come the several insects by that sagacity to find out the most proper places to lay their eggs in? It being observed of them, by those who have most curiously inquired about these matters, That all the several Mr. Ray of sorts of insects lay their eggs in places most safe and tion, p.115. agreeable to them; where they are seldom lost or miscarry; and where they have a supply of nourishment for their young, so soon as they are hatched and need it. But there are some things yet further to be considered in the necessary vital parts of animals, which shew that they could not be the result of a fortuitous motion of matter. The main vitals of animals are the same; and where there is any observable difference, these two things are remarkable: 1. That they are alike in the same kind. 2. That it is for the greater conveniency of those kinds. As the position of the heart is higher in mankind, than in creatures that put their heads down to eat; because if the heart of mankind were in the centre of the body, and not in the upper part, there could not be so easy a passage of the blood from the heart to the head, which is so necessary for the support of life; but in those creatures which hold their heads downwards, although the passage may be longer in such which have long necks, yet no inconvenience comes by it, because of the easiness of the descent in holding down their heads. But how comes a fortuitous the Crea Harv. BOOK production of animals to cause such an agreement in I. the several parts of living creatures, that all have the same vitals, insects excepted, in which the heart is the whole body, (tota cor sunt,) none wanting the heart with its arteries carrying out the blood, and the veins returning it; nor the lungs for respiration, nor the brain for sense and motion? (to name no more.) How comes a blind motion of matter to hit so exactly on all these, and to put them into such a convenient situation for the preservation of life? How comes the heart to be endued with such strong fibres, unless it were intended not merely to receive the blood in its passage, but to disperse it again by its contraction of itself? How come the coats of the arteries about the heart to be so much stronger than in the outward parts, but that there is the greatest necessity of their being so, to receive the blood in its first heat and quickest motion? How come the veins to be so dispersed in all parts of the body, but to receive the blood in its return, and so to keep up the life and warmth of all parts? What motion of matter could frame the valves in the veins, so as to give free passage of the blood towards the heart, but oppose the passage of the venal blood the other way? (which gave the first occasion to the discovery of the circulation of the blood, as Mr. Boyle tells us from Dr. Harvey himself.) What is it which keeps the blood in its constant course for so many years, as some animals live to? And what makes the very different periods of their lives, when we can see no reason, from their mechanical frame, why one should in an ordinary course survive another for so great a compass of years? What is there in the texture and coalition of the parts of a stag, to make it outlive an ox or a horse Arist. Hist. so many years; when Aristotle saith, They seem to be less made for long life than other animals, as far as Boyle of Anim. 1. vi. c. 29. I. 1. i. c. 7. Cod. 278. he could judge by their bearing and growth: but CHAP. Pliny so long after him saith, Vita cervis in confesso Plin. N. H. longa est; i was a thing taken for granted that they 1. viii. c. 32. lived long. But I meddle not with any improbable stories about it; for my argument depends not upon any thing but what all grant to be true, viz. that there is a great diversity in the lives of animals; of which, I say, no account can be given from mere matter and motion. There is no probability of any kind of animals arising III. from putrefaction, which the Egyptians and Diodorus Siculus make their foundation. After the inundation Diod. Sicul. of the Nile, a sudden heat of the sun falling on the slime causes a putrefaction; and from thence an innumerable company of mice came. But Theophrastus, a very great philosopher, in a fragment preserved in Photius, saith, That the great number of mice is to be Phot. Bibl. found in dry soils, and not in moist; for water is a great enemy to them, and they are certainly destroyed by it. How comes Theophrastus to differ so much herein from Diodorus Siculus and the Egyptians? Or must we suppose that the water of Nile was quite of a different nature from all other waters to them? Pro- Plin. N. H. 1. x. c. 65. ventus eorum in siccitatibus, saith Pliny; where he ed. Par. speaks of the great increase of them. How then came they to multiply in such moist places, where the Nile hath overflowed? Rain-water kills them, saith Ari-Arist. Hist. stotle; how then comes the Nile to produce them? If it be said, that Aristotle speaks of great showers which drown them; it is easily answered, that at their going off, upon these principles, they produce more; and so the greatest numbers would be after great rains. But what Theophrastus saith before of small frogs, will hold of these mice too: They do not come from the water, but that discovers them, and brings them out of the places where they were before. And Pliny's words Anim. 1. vi. c. 37. I. c. 51. BOOK are remarkable, when he speaks of this matter, Detegente eo (Nilo) musculi reperiuntur, &c. And so the Plin. N. H. late editor confesses it was in the best MSS. So that 1. ix. c. 58. the going off of the Nile is that only which brings them to light. And before, Pliny saith, the Gyrini (the name given to these small frogs) do come from other frogs, and not from putrefaction; Pariunt minimas carnes nigras, quas Gyrinos vocant, oculis tantum et cauda insignes; mox pedes figurantur, &c. These are called tadpoles, and seem imperfect at first, but by degrees do come to all their parts. But as to animals arising from putrefaction, learned and inquisitive persons of our age have taken great pains to discover the truth of it in several countries, but with no success. In Italy, Franc. Redi undertook the discovery of this matter with incredible diligence, and great variety of experiments; but after all could not find that any putrefied flesh would produce animals, much less Fr. Redi de putrefied water or slime; but that lesser animals hide P. 195, &c. themselves under dirt and slime, and therefore have Gen.Insect. p. P. 208. P. 209. been suspected to have come out of it; and if those who first broached this opinion had examined this matter more strictly, they would have found them only covered over, or at least some part of them, with that earth which they thought had brought them forth. And for the little frogs, he saith, that they are so much of the colour of the earth, that they might easily be mistaken for parts of it; but upon opening of them, their stomachs and intestines are full of food and excrements. Which is a plain demonstration against their original from the earth; and he concludes it a thing impossible for any such creatures, that are part mud and part animals, to be produced by the inundation of the Nile. There is a remarkable passage in Olaus Wormius concerning the Norway mice, which seem to come out of the clouds; I. 1. iii. c. 23. p. 326. 192, 193. Instit. Med. Goedart. de that as soon as they are fallen, they have found green CHAP. herbs in their bowels: (and I do not think any grass- Museum grows in the clouds.) But he thinks Scaliger's opinion warmian. not improbable, that they come from putrefied water in the clouds; and he saith, The seamen have found them Exercit. fallen into their vessels, and that the clouds stink, and hinder their breathing: but at last he thinks they may be only carried by some violent storms from the moun tains and islands, where they breed in great abundance. And Etmullerus, a German physician, concludes all Etmuller. equivocal generation to be impossible. Some of our c. 23. own most diligent inquirers, after all their searches, declare that they can find no such thing as a sponta- Lister in neous generation of animals; and I remember I have for- Insect. merly read a discourse in MS. of Mr. Boyle's to that purpose. Our ingenious and learned Mr. Ray positively Ray of the affirms, That there is no such thing in nature as equi- part ii. vocal or spontaneous generation; but that all animals, P. 71. as well small as great, are generated by animal parents of the same species with themselves. And because some were offended at it, he goes about to justify his assertion, not only from reason, but from the authority of Malpighius, as well as Redi, Swammerdam, and Lewenhoek, and many others, who have examined this matter carefully and circumspectly; and therefore their authority sways more with him, than the concurrent suffrages of a thousand others, as he saith. P. 47. Creation, But there are some things not yet sufficiently cleared as to this matter, especially as to animals breeding in human bodies, of particular times, and in some diseases: but as to plants, and some insects about them, in which Redi himself gives up the cause, Malpighius contradicts him, and so do Swammerdam and others; particularly Mr. Hook saith, He observed little eggs Microgra. in the protuberances of plants, which became worms P. 189. |