terial fubftance, being in the fame circumftances with infects, is not the caufe of its own existence, and cannot bestow it on any thing whatever. For the truth of this I appeal to experience. The man of most exalted endowments in the clafs of material beings, whatever intelligence and industry, he may be poffeffed of cannot create the fmalleft infect. But if matter is not the principle which gives these existence, can we say that they have received it from the fecond fort of fubftances called immaterial? By no means; for immaterial fubftances have only a very limited power, but an infinite power is neceffary to draw any thing out of nothing; confequently no created being car be the creative principle of infects, confequently likewife, in order to find this principle, we must ascend to a fupreme being who exifts by his own energy, who cannot cease to exift, who is permanent, immutable, and who includes in himself the eause of alk things, in a word to that being whom we know under the name of God.

It is alfo this great Being whom the Scripture points out to us, as the general caufe of every thing that exists. "Lift up your eyes on high, and be"hold who hath created thefe things, that bringeth "out their hoft by number: he calleth them all by "names, by the greatnefs of his might, for that he "is ftrong in power, not one faileth."" Lord, "thou art God, which haft made heaven and earth, "and the fea, and all that in them is."

66

Infects are not excepted from this general law; "God, fays Mofes, commanded the earth to produce living creatures after their kind, cattle, creeping things, and beafts after their kind." Is not God then the author of Infects as well as of other animals?

65

For

For the manner in which infects have been perpe tuated from their creation to this day we can easily 'account. Like all the other animals they multiply by means of generation. Upon receiving exif tence they at the fame time received the power of producing their like, and of preferving in this, manner, their fpecies for ages. The fame Ged who created them by his power, bleffed them, and ordered them to encrease, and multiply on the earth, each after its kind. GEN. 1 22.

The antient philofophers were not at all of the opinion of Mofes on this point; fome believing that the greater part of infects were not multiplied in the ordinary way of generation, but were engendered by all forts of matter. This they called equivocal generation, and they did not confine this idea to infects alone. Many plants according to them, could grow out of the womb of nature, without being fown or cultivated. It would not be difficult to fhew how little folidity there is in either of these opinions; but as the laft does not belong to my fubject, I fhall confine myfelf folely to demonftrate the falfity of the first.

Obfervers of nature having remarked swarms of infects in different fubftances, imagined that thofe diminutive animals, were produced immediately, without the concourse of any animal of their own fpecies. Such they found in putrid fieth, in the entrails of animals, in the leaves of plants, in rivers, in rain wa-ter, in fnow and in duft; therefore said they, it is from thefe fubftances that they derive their existence. If these philofophers were asked how fuch a thing could happen; they gravely antwered, that the heat of the Sun, augmenting the fermentation of these fubftances, the infects were produced by the fermentation. People were long fatisfied with fuch reafoning, because no one ever took the trouble of examin

ing the fubject more clofely. The moderns, better obfervers than the antients, at laft arrived at the truth. They found that infects only grow in fuch substances, when others of the fame fpecies have previously deposited their ova in them; and that the Sun has no further effect in their generation, than that of giving the neceflary warmth to thefe ova. The experiments of Redi alone, an accurate naturallift leave no room to doubt of the fact; they are decifive.

To affure himself that infects are not produced from .corruption, he took the flesh of Serpents, of Pigeons, Oxen, Horfes, and Fishes; and put these into two crystal veffels, one of which was fhut, and the other open. What was the confequence? A short time afterwards, the open veffel fwarmed with little maggots, that turned afterwards to flies; while the other did not produce a fingle infect. But it may be faid there would have been no difference in the two veffels, had not the air been intercepted, and confequently the production of the infects prevented. This objection occurred to our naturalift and enga ged him to inftitute a new experiment. He filled a third veffel with a fimilar mixture, and covered the aperture with gauze, fufficiently tight to exclude all infects, but open enough to allow a free entrance to the air. Undoubtedly the fame infects would have been found in this veffel which were obferved in that which had been open to the air, if corruption alone could have made them grow. But that did not hapen. The veffel which was covered with gauze did not contain any animals,

The opinion that Infects are generated from plants is not better founded. On this fubject we have the decifion of the celebrated Malpighi, whofe authority will appear refpectable to all who know the merits

of

of that learned Phyfician. It is known that maggots and flies, breed in protuberances on trees called Gall-nuts. Thefe infects would appear at first evidently produced by what is called equivocal generation; and fo the vulgar believe; but Malpighi difcovered that flies depofited their eggs on those trees, that they were the occafion of those tumours, and that from the ova grew maggots which at laft produced flies like the parent.

But there is no neceffity for adducing more proofs of a fact in favour of which common fenfe speaks fo decidedly. How can we conceive that a substance fhould produce another of a nature much more excellent than its own? But this would be the case of a plant which fhould produce infects. If it were true that it could give us fuch productions, it could not give them, but in one of two ways, either by means of an unapt material, which would approach very nearly to a creation; or by purifying that ma terial, fo as to render it fit for the production of an infect; which furpaffes its power. The femen of an animal does not arrive at that degree of perfection neceflary for the production of another animal, without the affiftance of a great number of faculties, of which plants are entirely deftitute. What elaborate preparation in the proper veffels! what digeftion, what fecretion, what circulation, before that matter is fufficiently purified, and has acquired its neceffary qualities! Infects which lay eggs have the veffels neceffary for their formation; they are endowed with the faculties neceffary for their fecundation, and the means of difcharging them when they arrive at maturity. Nothing of all his is to be found in Plants. Whatever analogy there may be, in many circumftances, between them and animals a very great difference is obfervable between their functions, their faculties, there vafcular

fyftem

fyftem, their means of propagation; it can never therefore appear credible that they have the power of generating Infects, the production of which re quires fo many qualities of which they are deftitute. I maintain the fame thing of all other inanimate bodies; and I do not hefirate to fay that a watch, with all its wheels, might fooner grow from the filings of steel, than an Infect could be formed by an inanimate body, however perfect the organs of that body might be in its kind."

Intelligent perfons, never give into an opinion fo ill founded as that I am refuting. They eafily perceive that it is contrary to realon, and to the courfe of nature; they even find weapons to combat it in the facred Scriptures. Indeed, we may remark that God gave to every creature, the lofs of which would have drawn with it that of the whole fpecies, the faculty of producing its like, before it should perish itfelf. He did not leave this office to chance, but willed that every fpecies fhould contain in itself the germ and feed of an animal, or of a plant of the fame species, and not of any other. "Let the "earth, fays the Creator bring forth grafs, the herb "yielding feed, and the fruit tree, yielding fruit after "his kind, whofe feed is in itfelf upon the earth.” These plants therefore have their feed in themselves and can perpetuate their own fpecies, but they can. produce nothing elfe. It is not otherwife with animals. After God had created them, each after its kind, he gave them the faculty of multiplying by generation. Each after its kind had thenceforth the power of producing its like; but this power was confined folely to its own fpecies, and it would be vain to fuppofe; that an infect could produce infects of a fpecies different from its own. Gen. 1. 21. 22. 28. Since that time no derangement has taken place, no interruption in the order which God at

E

firit