have perceived that whenever mixed bodies were placed in a situation to
act on each other, motion was instantly excited; and that these mixtures
acted with a force capable of producing the most surprising results.

If particles of iron, sulphur, and water be mixed together, these bodies
thus capacitated to act on each other, are heated by degrees, and
ultimately produce a violent combustion. If flour be wetted with water,
and the mixture closed up, it will be found, after some lapse of time,
(by the aid of a microscope) to have produced organized beings that
enjoy life, of which the water and the flour were believed incapable: it
is thus that inanimate matter can pass into life, or animate matter,
which is in itself only an assemblage of motion.

Reasoning from analogy, which the philosophers of the present day do not
hold incompatible, the production of a man, independent of the ordinary
means, would not be more astonishing than that of an insect with flour
and water. Fermentation and putrid substances, evidently produce living
animals. We have here the principle; with proper materials, principles
can always be brought into action. That generation which is styled
_uncertain_ is only so for those who do not reflect, or who do not
permit themselves, attentively, to observe the operations of Nature.

The generative of motion, and its developement, as well as the energy of
matter, may be seen everywhere; more particularly in those unitions in
which fire, air, and water, find themselves combined. These elements, or
rather these mixed bodies, are the most volatile, the most fugitive of
beings; nevertheless in the hands of Nature, they are the essential
agents employed to produce the most striking phenomena. To these we must
ascribe the effects of thunder, the eruption of volcanoes, earthquakes,
&c. Science offers to our consideration an agent of astonishing force,