very famous
Authors; though, I confess, I have not yet been able to discover such my
self.

And whereas it may seem strange that _Vinegar_, _Meal_, musty _Casks_, &c.
are observ'd to breed their differing kinds of Insects, or living
creatures, whereas they being Vegetable substances, seem to be of an
inferiour kind, and so unable to produce a creature more noble, or of a
more compounded nature then they themselves are of, and so without some
concurrent seminal principle, may be thought utterly unfit for such an
operation; I must add, that we cannot presently positively say, there are
no animal substances, either mediately, as by the soil or fatning of the
Plant from whence they sprung, or more immediately, by the real mixture or
composition of such substances, join'd with them; or perchance some kind of
Insect, in such places where such kind of _putrifying_ or _fermenting_
bodies are, may, by a certain instinct of nature, eject some sort of
seminal principle, which cooperating with various kinds of _putrifying_
substances, may produce various kinds of Insects, or Animate bodies: For we
find in most sorts of those lower degrees of Animate bodies, that the
_putrifying_ substances on which these Eggs, Seeds, or seminal principles
are cast by the Insect, become, as it were, the _Matrices_ or Wombs that
conduce very much to their generation, and may perchance also to their
variation and alteration, much after the same manner, as, by strange and
unnatural copulations, several new kinds of Animals are produc'd, as
_Mules_, and the like, which are usually call'd Monstrous, because a little
unusual, though many of them have all their principal parts as perfectly
shap'd and adapted for their peculiar uses, as any of the most perfect
Animals. If therefore the _putrifying_ body, on which any kind of seminal
or vital principle chances to be cast, become somewhat more then meerly a
nursing and fostering helper in the generation and production of any kind
of Animate body, the more neer it approaches the true nature of a Womb, the
more power will it have on the by-blow it incloses. But of this somewhat
more in the description of the _Water-gnat_. Perhaps some more accurate
Enquiries and Observations about these matters might bring the Question to
some certainty, which would be of no small concern in Natural Philosophy.

But that _putrifying_ animal substances may produce animals of an inferior
kind, I see not any so very great a diffic