This analogy is repeated almost in identical words in Basil’s Hom. xxii. De Providentia.  cf. also his Com. on Isaiah.  St. Ambrose repeats the illustration (Hex. v. 20).  The analogy, even if the facts were true, would be false and misleading.  But it is curious to note that were any modern divine desirous of here following in Basil’s track, he might find the alleged facts in the latest modern science,—e.g. in the so-called Parthenogenesis, or virginal reproduction, among insects, as said to be demonstrated by Siebold.  Haeckel (Hist. of Creation, Lankester’s ed. ii. p. 198) represents sexual reproduction as quite a recent development of non-sexual reproduction.