A comet, for
instance, is the seed of a world; and after it has been fully
ripened, by passing from sun to sun, and star to star, it is at
last tossed into the unformed elements which every where surround
this universe, and immediately sprouts up into a new system.
Or if, for the sake of variety (for I see no other
advantage), we should suppose this world to be an animal; a comet
is the egg of this animal: and in like manner as an ostrich lays
its egg in the sand, which, without any further care, hatches the
egg, and produces a new animal; so....
I understand you, says D/EMEA\: But what wild, arbitrary
suppositions are these! What data have you for such extraordinary
conclusions? And is the slight, imaginary resemblance of the
world to a vegetable or an animal sufficient to establish the
same inference with regard to both? Objects, which are in general
so widely different, ought they to be a standard for each other?
Right, cries P/HILO\: This is the topic on which I have all
along insisted. I have still asserted, that we have no data to
establish any system of cosmogony. Our experience, so imperfect
in itself, and so limited both in extent and duration, can afford
us no probable conjecture concerning the whole of things. But if
we must needs fix on some hypothesis; by what rule, pray, ought
we to determine our choice? Is there any other rule than the
greater similarity of the objects compared? And does not a plant
or an animal, which springs from vegetation or generation, bear a
stronger resemblance to the world, than does any artificial
machine, which arises from reason and design?
But what is this vegetation and generation of which you
talk? said D/EMEA\.
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