434 OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 3. Suppose every acorn that grew on the first oak should contain in the littlegerm or bud of it (which is a very small part of the acorn itself) all the oaks that might be produced from thence even to the end of the world in one single line of direct succession, this is prodigious and astonishing beyond all reasona- ble belief ; but according to this hypothesis, we must suppose, that the germs or buds in each of these acorns do actually con- tain also all the acorns that those oaks might annually produce, together with all their annual leaves ; and again, all the younger oaks whichmight be produced from each ,of these acorns in ten thousand collateral successions; now this raises the number to such millions of millions, that nothing but the incomprehensible idea of infinite, can ever be supposed to answer ; and at best in this controversy, it seems rather to be a refuge of darkness to hide in than a clear explication. 4. We find many plants may be produced by slips or twigs of the sameplant, and that of trees as well as herbs and flowers, such as the vine, the willow, &c. And it is not to be suppo- sed that each twig and slip have had all these future seeds and trees actually formed in them, together with all their leaves and fruits the first week of the creation, even thoughwe should allow every seed to contain all these infinite successions of their species. 5. Have we not reason to conceive that every seedof aplant is formed alike ? Has not then every acorn and every bean that is devoured by animals for their food, and every grain of corn as well as all the fruits of the trees and their seeds which are eaten by men and birds, the same millions of these complete trees or plants, corn or herbage contained in them in miniature . which are ascribed to those other seeds and fruitswhich are actu- ally sown or planted out, in order to produce new vegetablesof their own kind ? Now if it be so, what an infinite number of complete trees, flowers,, punts and herbs would be made by the exquisite artifice of the Creator to no purpose ? And thus a vastlygreater part of the original and immediate workmanship of God in the first week of creation, would be labour in vain since none of it attains its proper end, -but only in those few seeds and fruits which afterwards grow up into complete plants or trees, which is not one to ten thousand or perhaps to a million. The same thing might be; said of animals. If every male animal contains in it millions of animalcules, as Mr. Lewenhoeck supposes by the use of his microscope, and every such male ani- malcule actually contains millions of less animalcules, 'and so on in progression for a hundred or a thousand generations of men, brutes or insects, since the days of Adam, what an immense waste of creatures is herd? What au amazing and superfluous multi-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=