nsistence in some animal or other, but want those organs, veins, and
muscles which animals enjoy. And therefore no story delivers that ever
any egg was formed immediately from earth; and the poets themselves tell
us, that the egg out of which came the Tyndaridae fell down from heaven.
But even till this time the earth produceth some perfect and organized
animals, as mice in Egypt, and snakes, frogs, and grasshoppers almost
everywhere, some external and invigorating principle assisting in the
production. And in Sicily, where in the servile war much blood was shed,
and many carcasses rotted on the ground, whole swarms of locusts were
produced, and spoiled the corn over the whole isle. Such spring from and
are nourished by the earth; and seed being formed in them, pleasure
and titillation provoke them to mix, upon which some lay eggs, and some
bring forth their young alive; and this evidently proves that animals
first sprang from earth, and afterwards by copulation, after different
ways, propagated their several kinds. In short, it is the same thing
as if you said the womb was before the woman; for as the womb is to
the egg, the egg is to the chick that is formed in it; so that he that
inquires how birds should be when there were no eggs, might ask as well
how men and women could be before any organs of generation were
formed. Parts generally have their subsistence together with the whole;
particular powers follow particular members, and operations those
Powers, and effects those operations. Now the effect of the generative
power is the seed and egg; so that these must be after the formation
of the whole. Therefore consider, as there can be no digestion of food
before the animal is formed, so there can be no seed nor egg; for those,
it is likely, are made by some digestion and alterations; nor can it
be that, before the animal is, the superfluous parts of the food of the
animal should have a being. Besides, though seed may perhaps pretend to
be a principle, the egg cannot; for it doth not subsist first, nor
hath it the nature of a whole, for it is imperfect. Therefore we do not
affirm that the animal is produced without a principle of its being; but
we call the principle that power which changes, mixes, and tempers the
matter, so that a living creature is regularly produced; but the egg is
an after-production, as the blood or milk of an animal after the taking
in and digestion of the food. For we never see an egg formed immed