Again, it is most probable, if not certain, that most Animals have in them from the beginning the Seeds or Eggs of all the young they shall afterward bring forth, which when they were spent and exhaust the Creature becomes barren or effete. So we see all the female foetus of viviparous Quadrupeds are brought forth with their Testes or Ovaria in them, which are esteemed parts of their bodies; and all Birds have in them from their first formation their Ovary or Egg-cluster, containing the Seeds of all the Eggs they shall ever lay. Now had the Creature a power of producing new ones, what need was there that there should be so many at first formed in them? and why might they not breed them as well afterwards, as at the beginning?
Hereupon these Philosophers argue thus: Suppose we that God did at first create two Animals, a Male and a Female: The Female must be created with its Ovaries or Testes, which (as we said) contained so many Seeds or Eggs as the Creature should ever bring forth young. So it is clear that not only the first pair, but the first generation of Animals were actually created. Again, this first generation from their first appearance had each of them (the Females I mean) its Ovaria or Clusters of Eggs, every one whereof had in like manner its Animalcule in it; so that this second generation was also created in the first. The same may be demonstrated of the third and fourth, and so on of all the generations that shall be as long as the World lasts.
Against this Doctrine it may be objected, First, That it seems impossible that the Ovaries of one Female should actually include and contain the innumerable myriads of Animals that may proceed from it in so many Generations as have been and shall be during the continuance of the World. Who can conceive such a small portion of matter to be capable of such division, and to contain such an infinity of parts?
But to this it may be answered, That our sight doth not give us the just magnitude of things, but only their proportion, and what appears to the Eye as a Point, may be magnified so, even by Glasses, as to discover an incredible multitude of parts; nay, some Animals there are so small, that if a grain of Sand were broken into 8000000 of equal parts, one of these would not exceed the bigness of one of those Creatures, as Mr. Lewenhoek affirms. And Mr. Hook proceeds further, and says, that he had discovered some so exceeding small, that Millions of Millions might be contained in one drop of water. If these whole Creatures be so incredibly little, what shall we think of their parts containing and contained, their Entrails and Muscles, their Ovaries and Eggs? But for a sensible demonstration of the unconceivable, I had almost said infinite, divisibility of matter, I might refer the Reader to the Honourable Mr. Boyl of famous memory his Discourse concerning the strange subtlety of effluviums. I shall mention one or two Experiments. He dissolved one grain of filed Copper in Spirit of Saltarmoniack, and upon this Solution he poured so much distilled water by degrees, as till the fair and deep blew colour grew somewhat pale without being too dilute to be manifest. And then carefully weighing the Vessel and the Water, and subducting the weight of that out of this, he found the weight of the Liquor alone, when reduced to grains, to amount to 28534, so that a grain of Copper communicated a tincture to 28534 times its weight. Now considering that the weight of Copper to the weight of Water of the same bulk is proximè as 9 to 1, a grain-weight of Copper is in bigness but the ninth part of as much Water as weighs a grain; and so the formerly mentioned number of grains of Water must be multiplied by 9, to give us the proportion between the tinging Body and tinged Liquor; whence it will follow, that a single grain of Copper gave a blewness to above 256806 parts of limped Water, each of them as big as it. And to prosecute this Experiment further, he mixt together equal parts of distilled colourless Water, and of the said tincted Liquor, and found, that though the colour were very faint and dilute, yet an attentive Eye could easily discern it to be blewish: whereby it appears that one grain of Copper was able to impart a colour to double the quantity of Water above-mentioned, that is to 513612 grains of Water.
Other Experiments there are in the same Discourse made in odorate Bodies: Having, saith he, for curiosity sake suspended in a pair of exact Scales, that would turn with a very small part of a grain, a piece of Amber-greece bigger then a Walnut, and weighing betwixt an hundred and sixscore grains, I could not in three days and an half that I had opportunity to make the trial, discover even upon that balance, any decrement of weight in the Amber-greece, though so rich a Perfume lying in the open Air was like in that time to have parted with good store of odoriferous steams. And a while after suspending a lump of Asafoetida 5 days and a half, I found it not to have sustained any discernible loss of weight, though, in spite of the unfavourable cold weather it had about it a neighbouring Atmosphere replenished with foetid exhalations, &c.
But what can be imagined more small and subtile then the minute parts of the steams of Animals? The same Author in the same Tract tells us, That a good Setting Dog by his way of ranging the Fields, and his other motions especially of his head, would not only intimate the kinds of Game, whose scent he chanced to light upon, but would discover where Partridges had been (though perhaps without staying in that place) several hours before. He further tells us, That a very sober Gentleman of his acquaintance, who had often occasion to employ Blood-hounds, assured him, that if a Man had but passed over the Field, the spent would lye, so as to be perceptible enough to a good Dog of that sort for several hours after. And an ingenious Hunter likewise assured him, That he had observed, that the scent of a flying and hunted Deer will sometimes continue upon the ground from one day to the next following. He proceeds further, And now we may consider these three things; First, That the substance left upon the ground by the transient tread of a Partridge, Hare or other Animal, that doth but pass along his way, does probably communicate to the grass or ground but some of those effluxions that transpire out of his feet, which being small enough to escape the eye, may probably not amount to one grain in weight, or perhaps not to the tenth part of it. Next, That the parts of fluid Bodies, as such, are perpetually in motion, and so are the invisible Particles that swim in them, as may appear by the dissolution of Salt or Sugar in Water, and the wandring of aqueous Vapours through the Air, even when the eye perceives them not. And thirdly, that though the Atmosphere of one of these small parcels of the exhaling matter we are speaking of may oftentimes be exceeding vast in comparison of the emittent body, as may be guessed by the distance at which some Setters or Bloodhounds will find the scent of a Partridge or Deer; yet in places exposed to the free Air or Wind, ‘tis very likely that these steams are assiduously carried away from their fountain to maintain the forementioned Atmosphere for six, eight or more hours, that is as long as the scent hath been observed to lye, there will be requisite a continual recruit of steams succeeding one another. And that so very small a portion of matter, as that which we were saying the comes of these steams may be judged to be, being sensibly to impregnate an Atmosphere in comparably greater than its self, and supply it with almost continual recruits, we cannot but think, that the steams it parts with, must be of extreme and scarce conceivable minuteness. So far the Author. To which I shall add, That by the steams, I suppose, he means the minute Particles of which the steams are compounded. Now these minute Particles themselves must be compound Bodies, because they affect the sence in a particular manner, so that a sagacious Creature can distinguish by them, not only Species but Individuals; as a good Dog by the foot will find out his Master, though not only several other Creatures, but several Men have passed that way. Unless we will groundlesly affirm, that those Particles are the minima naturalia, and that the Creature discerns them by their figure, or their disserent manner of motion.
A second Objection of Brunnerus (as I find him quoted in Peyerus his Merycologia) is this, Si cuncta Animalium membra jam formata existant in ovo, &c. If all the Members of Animals already formed do exist in the Egg, though for their smalness they escape our sight; I cannot conceive, how by the force of imagination alone in a pregnant Woman, can be produced sometimes Calves heads or feet, sometimes a Dog’s face, or other monstrous Members; these productions being a certain and experimental proof, that the parts and members of Animals are formed and delineated originally in the Womb or Egg.
To this Peyerus replies, who then forms, who delineates such monsters? Shall we accuse God the Creator? But he is just, and doth not make enormous things: or will you blame Nature? That is the constant order and will of God, which never is deficient. Will you lay the fault upon the Plastick vertue or power residing in the Womb or Seed, and acting those things? But that is a Chimaera, it is nothing, it is an Idol. There remain two things to which the cause may justly be imputed, The imagination of the Mother, which may and doth oftentimes effect wonderful things in the Body of the tender Embryon; and the Devil. If you refuse to admit the former, you are obliged to accept the latter. And truly the Devil may, God so permitting, many ways abuse Men, and transfigure the young in the Womb, to punish the wicked and nefarious actions of degenerate Mankind indulging themselves in obscene imaginations, or preposterous and unnatural impurities and pollutions. But do these errours and enormities take away the order of Nature? by no means, for from what is rare and extraordinary and seldom happens, there is no consequence to be drawn. For though Monsters are sometimes born, nothing hinders but that we may still think, that the Idea’s of the seveveral Foetus may be prae-existent and latent in the Eggs; and the event may teach us, that those Idea’s or Embryo’s may by a violent cause be marred and deformed in the Womb; as Wax, though it be already figured, while it is soft is easily altered, and capable of receiving new impressions.
But against this Answer we may thus plead in defence of Brunnerus; As to what is said of the Devil, it seems to be but a shift or refuge to have recourse to when we are at a loss, and pinch’t with an Argument; as in the ancient Stage-plays, when they were put to a plunge, they were forced to bring in some Θεὸς ἀπὸ μηχανῆς to help them out. And as for the imagination of the Mother, strange it is, that that should have any influence at all upon the formation of the Foetus; the Mother not knowing any thing that’s done in the Womb; nor being conscious to her self of any power to form or act any thing there; the Foetus being an external thing to her, and no more a part of her, then an Egg is of the Hen that sits upon it, affording nothing to it but warmth and nourishment. And we see Eggs may be hatched by the artificial heat of an Oven, without the incubation of a Hen. But granting that the imagination of the Mother may transform the Foetus, why may it not as well originally form it out of prepared matter; and then what need of an Idea or minute Animalcule in the Seed? But whatever may be said of Men, how come Monsters in Brutes, which according to Peyerus are meer Machines, and have no imagination or perception at all?
But not to lead the Reader into a Maze or Labyrinth, and leave him there, for my own part I must confess, that the Argument for the praexistence of the Faetus’s, or their creation from the beginning, taken from the due number of Eggs that are in every Female from her first formation, and her being effete after they are spent, weighs very much with me, as I know not how to quit my self of it. And on the other hand, if those stories concerning Dogs and Serpents, &c. found in the wombs of Women be true (which are well attested) I acknowledge it very difficult, to give an Account how those Animals came to be bred or formed there. But I had rather confess my ignorance of the manner of the production of such praeternatural and extraordinary things, then to permit it to have such influence upon me, as to remove me from so wellgrounded an Opinion concerning the ordinary production of Animals in a natural way.
The being of a Plastick Nature subordinate to God, notwithstanding Peyerus makes an Idol of it, and charges those with Idolatry who do believe it, I am not afraid to admit: my Reasons for which I have given in another1 Discourse, and shall not here repeat.
The new Opinion of Mr. Lewenhoek, that all Animals proceed from an Insect or Animalcule in the Male-sperm, among other Reasons, I am less inclinable to, because of the necessary loss of a multitude, I might say infinity, of them, which seems not agreeable to the Wisdom and Providence of Nature. For supposing every Male hath in him all the Animalcules that he shall or may eject; they may, for ought I know, amount to millions of millions, and so the greatest part of them must needs be lost. Nay, if we take but one Coit, there must, in uniparous Creatures at least, abundance be lost. But if we suppose the Foetus to be originally in the Egg, it is not so. For the Eggs of all sorts of Creatures are so proportioned to the nature of the Animals, the time that they live, the time and number of their gestations, and the number they bring forth at all times, that they will much about suffice for the time the Creatures are fit to breed and nourish their young: so that they may, if need be, be all brought forth and come to perfection.
The End of the first Discourse.
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Footnotes
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Wisdom of God in the Creation. ↩