SECT. XXVI. Of Generation.


What is more admirable than the multiplication of animals? Look
upon the individuals: no animal is immortal. Everything grows old,
everything passes away, everything disappears, everything, in short,
is annihilated. Look upon the species: everything subsists,
everything is permanent and immutable, though in a constant
vicissitude. Ever since there have been on earth men that have
taken care to preserve the memory of events, no lions, tigers, wild
boars, or bears, were ever known to form themselves by chance in
caves or forests. Neither do we see any fortuitous productions of
dogs or cats. Bulls and sheep are never born of themselves, either
in stables, folds, or on pasture grounds. Every one of those
animals owes his birth to a certain male and female of his species.

All those different species are preserved much the same in all ages.
We do not find that for three thousand years past any one has
perished or ceased; neither do we find that any one multiplies to
such an excess as to be a nuisance or inconveniency to the rest. If
the species of lions, bears, and tigers multiplied to a certain
excessive degree, they would not only destroy the species of stags,
bucks, sheep, goats, and bulls, but even get the mastery over
mankind, and unpeople the earth. Now who maintains so just a
measure as never either to extinguish those different species, or
never to suffer them to multiply too fast?

But this continual propagation of every species is a wonder with
which we are grown too familiar. What would a man think of a