CHAP. IV - OF THE SUCCESSION OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS

Summary

The generation of the animal no more accounts 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 mechanifm of a former watch, would account for the fkill 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 fuitablenefs of their forms and places to their offices, for their connection, their operation, and the ufeful refult of that operation. I do infift moft ftrenuoufly upon the correctnefs of this comparifon; that it holds as to every mode of fpecific 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 elfe it be, it inclofes an organization fuited to the germination of a hew 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?