432 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



both animal and vegetal — possess or are endowed with 

 a natural tendency to develop into higher forms. Thus 

 Kiitzing, in his prize essay on the Transformations of 

 Plants, asserts, according to Mr. Berkeley i, ^ that from 

 one and the same organic material, even when it has 

 acquired form and colour, different vegetable [organ- 

 isms] may be developed, which, according to the cir- 

 cumstances of the surrounding medium, are Algals, 

 Fungi^ Lichens, or Mosses; and that even the spores 

 of these, when produced, are capable of generating 

 plants belonging to different orders.' Whilst else- 

 where 2, after stating that simple Algae under certain 

 circumstances ^ may raise themselves to vegetations of 

 a higher form,' he expressly affirms that ^the same 

 superior formation may be produced by primitive for- 

 mations of altogether different kinds.' Again, Prof. 

 Reissek^ says he has seen Confervas arising from the 

 metamorphosed chlorophyll vesicles of ordinary flower- 

 ing plants, and that he has also observed similar forms 

 produced by the development, under unusual conditions, 

 of pollen-grains. Similar views have been announced 

 by Meyen ^ both as to the diverse modes of origin of 

 the same kinds of Lichen, and as to the convertibility 

 of different forms. Such views are, moreover, con- 

 firmed by the observations of Dr. Braxton Hicks, 



^ ' Introd. to Cryptogam. Botany,' 1857. 

 2 'Ann, des Sc. Nat.' n. s. vol. ii. p. 225. 

 ^ 'Bot. Zeit.' July 19, 1844. 

 * ' Ueber die Entwickelung &c. der Flechten.' 



