Note a — BOOK IV. (continued 2)

Spontaneous Generation, is a Doctrine so generally exploded, that I shall not undertake the Disproof of it. It is so evident, that all Animals, yea, Vegetables too, owe their Production to Parent-Animals and Vegetables; that I have often admir’d at the Sloath and Prejudices of the ancient Philosophers, in so easily taking upon Trust the Aristotelian, or rather, the Ægyptian Doctrine of equivocal Generation; that when they saw Flies, Frogs and Lice, for Instance, to be Male and Female, and accordingly to ingender, lay Eggs, &c. they could ever imagine any of these Creatures should be spontaneously produc’d, especially in so romantick a Manner, as in the Clouds: as they particularly thought Frogs were, and that they dropp’d down in Showers of Rain. For an Answer to this Case of Frogs, I shall refer to a Relation of my own, which my late most ingenious, and learned Friend, the great Mr. Ray, requested of me, and was pleas’d to publish in his last Edition of his Wisdom of God manifested, &c. p. 365.

But some will yet assert the Raining of Frogs; among which the curious Dr. Plot is somewhat of this Opinion; telling us of Frogs found on the Leads of the Lord Aston’s Gatehouse, at Tixal in Staffordshire, which he thinks by some such Means came there; as also on the Bowling-Green, frequently after a Shower of Rain. Plot’s Hist. Staff. c. 1. §. 47.

But we may take a Judgment of this, and an Hundred such like Reports, to be met with in considerable Authors, from other the like Reports that have been better inquir’d into. In a Scarcity in Silesia, a mighty Rumour was spread of its raining Millet-Seed; but the Matter being inquir’d into, ’twas found to be only the Seeds of the Ivy-leaved Speedwell, or small Henbit, growing in the Place in great Plenty. Eph. Germ. An. 3. Obs. 40. So in the Archipelago, it was thought Ashes were rain’d, Ships being cover’d therewith at a hundred Leagues Distance; but in all Probability, it was from an Eruption of Vesuvius, that then happen’d. About Warminster in Wilts, ’twas reported it rain’d Wheat; but a curious Observer, Mr. Cole, found it to be only Ivy-Berries, blown thither in a considerable Quantity by a Tempest. In the Year 1696, at Cranstead near Wrotham in Kent, a Pasture-Field was over-spread with little young Whitings, suppos’d to fall from the Clouds, in a Tempest of Thunder and Rain; but doubtless they were brought thither with Waters from the Sea by the Tempest. See the before-commended Mr. Lowth. Abridg. Philos. Trans. Vol. 2. p. 143, 144.

Neither needeth it seem strange, that Ashes, Ivy-Berries, small Fishes, or young Frogs, (which yet may have some other Conveyance,) should be thus transported by tempestuous Winds, considering to what Distance, and in what Quantities the Sea-Waters were carry’d by the Great-Storm, Nov. 26. 1703, of which an ingenious Friend sent me these Accounts from Lewes in Sussex, viz. That a Physician travelling soon after the Storm, to Tisehurst, twenty Miles from the Sea, as he rode along pluck’d some Tops of Hedges, and chewing them, found them Salt: That some Grapes hanging on the Vines at Lewes were so too. That Mr. Williamson Rector of Ripe, found the Twigs in his Gardens Salt the Monday after the Storm; and others observ’d the same a Week after. That the Grass of the Downs about Lewes, was so Salt, that the Sheep would not feed till Hunger compell’d them: And that the Miller of Berwick, (three Miles from the Sea,) attempting with his Man to secure his Mill, were so wash’d with Flashes of Sea-Water, like the Breakings of Waves against the Rocks, that they were almost strangled therewith, and forced to give over their Attempt.

I call’d this Doctrine of equivocal Generation, an Ægyptian Doctrine; because probably it had its Rise in Ægypt, to salve the Hypothesis, of the Production of Men, and other Animals, out of the Earth, by the Help of the Sun’s Heat. To prove which, the Ægyptians, (as Diod. Sicul. saith,) produce this Observation, That about Thebes, when the Earth is moistened by the Nile, by the Intense Heat of the Sun, an innumerable Number of Mice do spring out. From whence he infers, That all Kinds of Animals, might as well at first come likewise out of the Earth. And from these the learned Bishop Stillingfleet thinks other Writers, as Ovid, Mela, Pliny, &c. have, without examining its Truth, taken up the same Hypothesis. V. Stillingfleet’s Orig. Sacr. Part 2. Book 1. Chap. 1.

The before-commended Dr. Harris, from the Observations of Dr. Harvey, Sr. Malpighi, Dr. de Graaf, and Mr. Leewenhoeck, infers three Things concerning Generation as highly probable. 1. That Animals are ex Animalculo. 2. That the Animalcules are originally in femine Marium, & non in Fœminis. 3. That they can never come forward, or be formed into Animals of the respective Kind, without the Ova in Fœminis. His Proofs and Illustrations, see under the Word Generation, in his Lex. Techn. Vol. 2.