prepared for the formation of all the animals that shall preserve
their species in all succeeding ages. Now, these moulds, which, as
I have observed, must have all the configuration of the animal, are
as difficult to be explained or accounted for as the animals
themselves, and are besides attended with far more unexplicable
wonders. It is certain that the configuration of every individual
animal requires no more art and power than is necessary to frame all
the springs that make up that machine; but when a man supposes
moulds: first, he must affirm that every mould contains in little,
with unconceivable niceness, all the springs of the machine itself.
Now, it is beyond dispute that there is more art in making so
compound a work in little than in a larger bulk. Secondly, he must
suppose that every mould, which is an individual prepared for a
first generation, contains distinctly within itself other moulds
contained within one another ad infinitum, for all possible
generations, in all succeeding ages. Now what can be more artful
and more wonderful in matter of mechanism than such a preparation of
an infinite number of individuals, all formed beforehand in one from
which they are to spring? Therefore the moulds are of no use to
explain the generations of animals without supposing any art or
skill. For, on the contrary, moulds would argue a more artificial
mechanism and more wonderful composition.

What is manifest and indisputable, independently from all the
systems of philosophers, is that the fortuitous concourse of atoms
never produces, without generation, in any part of the earth, any
lions, tigers, bears, elephants, stags, bulls, sheep, cats, dogs, or
horses. These and the like are never produced but by the encounter
of two of their kind of different sex. The two animals that produce
a third are not the true authors of the art that shines in the