tion of every species is a wonder with
which we are grown too familiar. What would a man think of a
watchmaker who should have the art to make watches, which, of
themselves, should produce others ad infinitum in such a manner that
two original watches should be sufficient to multiply and perpetuate
their species over the whole earth? What would he say of an
architect that should have the skill to build houses, which should
build others, to renew the habitations of men, before the first
should decay and be ready to fall to the ground? It is, however,
what we daily see among animals. They are no more, if you please,
than mere machines, as watches are. But, after all, the Author of
these machines has endowed them with a faculty to reproduce or
perpetuate themselves ad infinitum by the conjunction of both sexes.
Affirm, if you please, that this generation of animals is performed
either by moulds or by an express configuration of every individual;
which of these two opinions you think fit to pitch upon, it comes
all to one; nor is the skill of the Artificer less conspicuous. If
you suppose that at every generation the individual, without being
cast into a mould, receives a configuration made on purpose, I ask,
who it is that manages and directs the configuration of so
compounded a machine, and which argues so much art and industry?
If, on the contrary, to avoid acknowledging any art in the case you
suppose that everything is determined by the moulds, I go back to
the moulds themselves, and ask, who is it that prepared them? In my
opinion they are still greater matter of wonder than the very
machines which are pretended to come out of them.

Therefore let who will suppose that there were moulds in the animals
that lived four thousand years ago, and affirm, if he pleases, that
those moulds were so inclosed one within another ad infinitum, that
there was a sufficient number for all the generations of those four
thousand years; and that there is still a sufficient number ready
prepared for the formation of all the animals that shall preserve
their species in all succeeding ages. Now, these moulds, which, as
I have observed, must have all the configuration of the animal, are
as difficult to be explained or accounted for as the animals
themselves, and are besides attended with far more unexplicable
wonders. It is certain that the configuration of every individual
animal requires no more art and power than is necessary to