Life’s Infinite Variety : Finding Order in Species

Abstract

Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra depicts a character, Lepidus, who, in a drunken mood, proclaims, “Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your Sun; so is your crocodile” (Act II, Scene VII). It is unlikely that either Shakespeare or the Romans believed that snakes and crocodiles came out of mud spontaneously; they had definitely seen eggs being laid and hatched. However, people — even learned ones — were not so sure, in the sixteenth century, about smaller insects. The prevailing idea indeed was that the small creatures like worms and vermin did emerge from filth and mud spontaneously.