ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE TRANSMUTATIONS. 129 



been recently started by continental naturalists, who 

 maintain that vegetables are actually converted into 

 animals, and these ag-ain into vegetables. 



It must be obvious, we think, from the details we 

 have already given, that the doctrine of transmuta- 

 tion^ so far as regards insects, is equally absurd and 

 impossible with the pretended alchemical transmutation 

 of lead and other inferior metals into gold and silver ; 

 which doctrine was, indeed, supported upon the sup- 

 posed fact of insects being thus transmuted *. But vi- 

 sionary as either of these may appear, they have both 

 been supported by men of talent and distinguished 

 reputation. It does not, perhaps, at first sight seem 

 more impossible, that water should be transmuted into 

 diamonds, or brass into gold, than thutan egg should 

 disclose a chick or a caterpillar, or that a caterpillar 

 should change into a butterfly or a beetle ; but by 

 adhering rigidly to facts, and rejecting as rigidly all 

 fancies and analogies, how plausible soever they may 

 appear, we are certain that the latter changes are of 

 common occurrence, whereas the former are contrary 

 to all experience, and to the best experiments. We 

 say the 6e.s^ ; because observations, if not experiments, 

 have been made for the express purpose of proving 

 such improbable transmutations. 



'* I have shown to a great number of persons," 

 says Professor Agardh, "the changeable crow silk 

 {Conferva mutahilis. Roth ; Draparjialdia in. 

 BoRY St. V.) in its state of a plant, the 3d of August, 

 change by the 5th into molecules endowed with loco- 

 mobility, reunite by the 6th into simple articulations, 

 and reconstituted by the 10th into the primitive form 

 of the plant t-" Previous to this (in 1814) Professor 

 Nees von Esenbeck, of Bonn, published similar obiser- 



* Sir Theodore Mayerne, Epist. Dedicat ad Theatrum Insect. 

 MouffetU. 



f Agardh, Diss, de Melamorph. Al^arum. 1820 



