ESSAY IX. 433 and animal full grown ; and they suppose that the daily produc- tions of nature are nothing else but the unveiling of these little plants and animals in continual succession, bringing them forth into light, and stretching and enlarging their parts by new inter- woven fibres, and pulpous matter coming between. One great reason they give for this is, that in the minute bud of a plant, suppose a tulip even in the winter, they can by a microscope discern the little stalk'and leaves of the flower, and the small triangular pod of seed in it ; and since matter is infinitely divisible, say they, why may not this minute tulip contain another, and that contain a third, and that a fourth, even to the number of many thousands in their diminished proportions ? 'l'o this I answer, in general, that from this one position, viz. that the microscope shews the formation of a perfect plant in its bud a few months before the time of its appearance in full growth, it is a vast leap to the conclusion, that therefore it may contain thousands and millions of such perfect plants in their in= finitely decreasing proportions, and that for five or six thousand years before the times of their appearance. But I would give several particular reasons against this opinion. 1. If we consider the exceeding small proportion that is be- tween the little supposed animals or vegetables which are con- tained in the seed, and the animals or vegetables in their full growth, it will appear that in the fourth, fifth, or sixth genera- tion they will be smaller than the homogeneous particles of the subtilest liquors, and therefore they cannot be organized and living bodies, all which require tubes with liquids in them. h owmuch more impossible is this supposition when we attempt to derive one hundred generations of men or brutes in this man- ner, or six thousand generations or successions of annual insects or plants ? 2. If to relieve this difficulty, you run into infinite possible divisibilities of matter, yet there is all the reason to infer these cannot be actually so in nature, i. e. not infinitely small particles, because of the determined limit of the size of all homogeneous particles of liquors, which have ever yet fallen under the search of philosophy. I add here further, that this sort of argument from the infinite divisibility of matter would be as powerful to prove this strange doctrine, if the world had stood six hundred thousand years, or even in an eternal world, asit is in a world ofsix thousand years standing. And let it be observed, that arguments drawn merely from infinites, lead our finite reasoning powers so far out of their own depth, that we are lost in them, and can hardly ever be well assured that our arguments are effectu- ally conclusive, or our inferences well drawn. See Essay 12. Sect. 3. VOL. vIII. E E
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