Copy 1, Volume 1

Tracts on the natural history of animals and vegetables / Translated from the original Italian by John Graham Dalyell, with physiological illustrations by the translator.

  • Spallanzani, Lazzaro, 1729-1799
Date:
1803
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tracts on the natural history of animals and vegetables / Translated from the original Italian by John Graham Dalyell, with physiological illustrations by the translator. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    122/442 (page 26)
    bb =©—SSCOANMALLCULA OF INFUSIONS, t foon fee that renders their eggs unfit for exclu: fion. , But I have not only found the loweft ani- malcula at that degree, but at 212° continued folly half an hour. Thefe are the faéts I have deemed it neceflary ‘to collect for eftimating the weight of the two objections to my experiment: and we readily fee how difcordant they are. If; in the heat experi- ment mentioned in my Differtation, I found nd motive inducing me to admit an imagined vepe- tative power, | have now the ftrongeft reafons for rejeCting it as inconfiftent and chimerical. And as 1 could not then conceal my propenfity ‘to believe, that infufion animalcula originated from germs, neither do I hefitate here to fay, propenfity has become perfect conviction(1). Hf the animalcula, in clofe veflels fubjected to heat, do not originate from the vegetative power, I do not (1) In the courfe of this work there are many allufiohs ‘to germs. ‘The great difpute concerning the generation of animated beings feems to refolve into the queftion, Whether there is a preorganized principle continually in- volved in another preorganized principle, and fo on, by fucceflive involutions, from: all eternity, and this, by the “concurrence of peculiar circumftances, expanding into the “complete animal; or if it is mote probable, that by the intercourfe of the fexes, or otherwife, fome change .or creation is effected, which gives birth to a new animal or a wanting part: Both hypothefis are attended with infinite difficulty, —T.