80 SUGAR IN PLANTS. 



insects for the purposes of food, and in some few 

 cases, we find, with consequences fatal to them : it 

 is the vegetable world which supplies the principal 

 support to all animated things, and sweets are 

 almost the sole production of this class of creation : 

 air and water are probably the natural aliment of 

 plants, but through the agency of light they im- 

 bibe oxygen, which produces the saccharine prin- 

 ciple ; and sugar, which is a vegetable oxide, is 

 found to contain considerably above half its weight 

 of oxygen almost all vegetables possess this mat- 

 ter, though undetected by common observation ; 

 the young joints of the common grasses are 

 sensibly replete with it ; the very liquor of an 

 onion abounds with sugar ; and there seems 

 sufficient reason to conjecture, that if vegetables 

 were deprived of this principle, they would lose 

 the most essential portion of their virtues ; as, 

 probably, no other constituent part contributes so 

 much to nutriment as this does, which might be 

 instanced by numerous examples. Taste, gene- 

 rally speaking, is the most variable sense which 

 we are acquainted with, the likes and dislikes of 

 sensitive beings being so often dissimilar, and even 

 perfectly at variance; an ordination of supreme 

 wisdom, and in perfect uniformity with the exten- 

 sive scheme of nature yet this one saccharine 

 substance, whether in a compounded state in 

 herbs, roots, or fruits, or uncombined in sweet 

 exudations and excretions of plants, seems nearly 

 in universal accordance with the likes of the 



