Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/421

 small that if the top only, a very point, be lost, all hope of pro- pagation is immediately destroyed ; in so small a particle does all the plastic power of the future tree seem lodged ! The provident ant by gnawing off this little particle stores safely in her subterraneous hoard the grain and other seeds she gathers, and ingeniously guards against their growing : " The cypress/' adds Pliny, in the same place, "bears a seed that is greatly sought after by the ant ; which makes us still further wonder, that the birth of mighty trees should be consumed in the food of so small an animal/' But on these points we shall say more when we show that many animals, especially insects, arise and are propagated from elements and seeds so small as to be invisible, (like atoms flying in the air,) scattered and dispersed here and there by the winds; and yet these animals are supposed to have arisen spontaneously, or from decomposition, because their ova are nowhere to be found. These considerations, how- ever, may furnish arguments to that school of philosophy which teaches that all things are produced from nothing ; and indeed there is hardly any ascertainable proportion between the rudi- ment and the full growth of any animal.

Js T or should we so much wonder what it is in the cock that preserves and governs so perfect and beautiful an animal, and is the first cause of that entity which we call the soul ; but much more, what it is in the egg, aye, in the germ of the egg, of so great virtue as to produce such an animal, and raise him to the very summit of excellence. Nor are we only to admire the greatness of the artificer that aids in the production of so noble a work, but chiefly the " contagion " of intercourse, an act which is so momentary ! "What is it, for instance, that passes from the male into the female, from the female into the egg, from the egg into the chick ? What is this transitory thing, which is neither to be found remaining, nor touching, nor con- tained, as far as the senses inform us, and yet works with the highest intelligence and foresight, beyond all art ; and which, even after it has vanished, renders the egg prolific, not because it now touches, but because it formerly did so, and that not merely in the case of the perfect and completed egg, but of the imperfect and commencing one when it was yet but a speck ; aye, and makes the hen herself fruitful before she has yet produced any germs of eggs, and this too so suddenly, as

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