S87 



ON THE PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 

 VEGETABLE ORGANIZATION.* 



BY ROBERT J. N. STREETEN, M.D. 



The Linnsean axiom, " Mineralia crescunt, Vegetabilia crescunt et 

 vivunt, Animalia crescunt vivunt et sefitiunt," was intended to 

 illustrate the difference existing in the objects of the three great 

 divisions of Nature — the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral 

 kingdoms, and may perhaps, for all ordinary purposes, serve to 

 establish a sufficient distinction; but when we come to scrutinize 

 more closely into Nature — when we proceed to investigate her as 

 displayed in the more simple and elementary of her productions 

 — in those productions which we are accustomed to consider as the 

 lowest in the scale of being, and often to neglect as scarcely worthy 

 of our regard, we shall find ample reason to doubt the correct- 

 ness of the generalization. Many mineral substances, when 

 crushed into fragments, afford minute globular particles, which, 

 if thrown into water, and viewed under high magnifying 

 powers, are seen to gyrate and revolve in a manner highly 

 curious, and at the same time present an appearance and habitude, 

 or mode of action, so entirely similar to some forms of animal or 

 vegetable being under like circumstances, as to be altogether 

 undistinguishable by any of the means of investigation which 

 are at present under our command. That there is a difference 

 between the ultimate molecules or atoms of mineral or inorganic 

 matter and the simplest forms of animal and vegetable existence, 

 we cannot doubt; but as we are incapable with the aid of the 

 instruments which we at present possess of tracing out and 

 examining these elementary bodies, either in the one case or the 

 other, wemust be content to take our departure in this investigation 

 from that part of the scale of progressive development of which 

 our means of research, aided by our reflecting powers, permit us 

 to acquire a knowledge. 



The ultimate particles or molecules of all mineral bodies have 

 been conceived to be of a shape either perfectly spherical, or 

 more or less inclining to a sphere, and these spheres or spheroids 

 of most inconceivable minuteness, varying, however, in their 

 size in bodies of a different nature, and probably also in their 

 polarities or modes of attraction. In the simplest forms of 

 vegetable or animal existence with which we are acquainted, 

 the external configuration of the organic particle is the same as, 

 or at least very similar to that conceived to belong to the mineral 



• Being the substance of a. Lecture delivered before the Members of the 

 Worcestershire Natural History Society. 



June, 1835. — vol, ii. no. xi. 2p 



