the external air; yet, had the author of nature shut it up by any other cover, than what was capable, by its texture, of receiving vibrations from found, and, by its connection with the interior parts, of tranfmitting those vibrations to the brain, the use of the organ, fo far as we can judge, must have been entirely obftructed.

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CHAP.

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE SUCCESSION OF PLANTS AND

ANIMALS.

THE generation of the animal no more ac

counts for the contrivance of the eye or ear, than, upon the fuppofition ftated in a preceding chapter, the production of a watch by the motion and mechanism of a former watch, would account for the skill and intention evidenced in the watch fo produced; than it would account for the difpofition of the wheels, the catching of their teeth, the relation of the feveral parts of the works to one another and to their common end, for the fuitableness of their forms and places to their offices, for their connection, their operation, and the useful refult of that operation. I do infist most strenuously upon the correctnefs of this comparison; that it holds as to every mode of specific propagation; and that whatever was true of the watch, under the hypothefis above mentioned, is true of plants and animals.

I. To begin with the fructification of plants. Can it be doubted but that the feed contains a particular organization? Whether a latent plantule with the means of temporary nutrition, or whatever else it be, it inclofes an organization suited to the germination of a new plant. Has the plant which produced the feed any thing more to do with that organization, 'than the watch would have had to do with the ftructure of the watch which was produced in the courfe of its mechanical movement? I mean, Has it any thing at all to do with the contrivance? The maker and contriver of one watch, when he inferted within it a mechanism fuited to the production of another watch, was, in truth, the maker and contriver of that other watch. All the properties of the new watch were to be referred to his agency: the defign manifefted in it, to his intention: the art, to him as the artift: the collocation of each part, to his placing the action, effect, and use, to his counfel, intelligence, and workmanship. In producing it by the intervention of a former watch, he was only working by one set of tools instead of another. So it is with the plant, and the feed produced by it. Can any diftinction be affigned between the two cases; between

between the producing watch, and the pro ducing plant? both paffive, unconscious fubftances; both, by the organization which was given to them, producing their like, without understanding or defign; both, that is, inftruments.

II. From plants we may proceed to oviparous animals; from feeds to eggs. Now I fay, that the bird has the fame concern in the formation of the egg which the lays, as the plant has in that of the feed which it drops; and no other, nor greater. The internal constitution of the egg is as much a secret to the hen, as if the hen were inanimate. Her will cannot alter it, or change a fingle feather of the chick. She can neither forefee nor determine of which fex her brood fhall be, or how many of either yet the thing produced shall be, from the firft, very different, in its make, according to the fex which it bears. So far therefore from adapting the means, fhe is not beforehand apprized of the effect. If there be concealed within that fmooth fhell a provifion and a preparation for the production and nourishment of a new animal, they are not of her providing or preparing: if there be contrivance, it is none of hers. Although, therefore,

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therefore, there be the difference of life and perceptivity between the animal and the plant, it is a difference which enters not into the account. It is a foreign circumftance. It is a difference of properties not employed. The animal function and the vegetable function are alike deftitute of any defign which can operate upon the form of the thing produced. The plant has no defign in producing the feed, no comprehenfion of the nature or use of what it produces the bird with respect to its egg, is not above the plant with respect to its feed. Neither the one nor the other bears that fort of relation to what proceeds from them, which a joiner does to the chair which he makes, Now a caufe, which bears this relation to the effect, is what we want, in order to account for the fuitablenefs of means to an end, the fitness and fitting of one thing to another and this cause the parent plant or animal does not fupply.

It is further obfervable concerning the propagation of plants and animals, that the apparatus employed exhibits no resemblance to the thing produced; in this refpect holding an analogy with inftruments and tools of art. The filaments, antheræ, and ftigmata of flowers

bear