HISTORY OF ZOOPHYTOLOGY. 429 



the different parts of the same animal, which the world has 

 long been acquainted with, why should we endeavour to con- 

 found the ideas of vegetable and animal substances, in the 

 minds of the people that we would willingly instruct in these 

 matters !"* And in a subsequent letter he repeats, " I can- 

 not reconcile myself to vegetating animals : the introduction 

 of the doctrine of this mixed kind of life will only confuse 

 our ideas of nature. We have not proof sufficient to deter- 

 mine it ; and I am averse to hypothesis."^ 



PALLAS, who published at this period an admirable history 

 of zoophytes,^ was also the advocate of the Linnaean doctrine, 

 but lie adduced no other facts than those ftirnished by Baster 

 in its aid, setting, however, in bolder relief the argument de- 

 rived from its accordance with the hypothesis of a continuous 

 series in the structure of organized beings, which, it was for 

 long a point of orthodoxy to believe, formed a chain "in linked 

 sweetness long drawn out," graduating insensibly from man 

 to the monad, as Bonnet maintained ; or branching off into 

 lesser series after the manner of a tree, a simile suggested by 

 Pallas himself as more correctly representing the "System 

 of Nature." He also adopted the opinion of Baster, who 

 in this respect continued in opposition to Linna?us, that the 

 true corallines (Corallina) were entirely of a vegetable nature, 

 and his arguments on this head may be summed up as follows: 

 In external appearance and structure a few corallines resemble 

 some Fuci, and many of them are like Confervse ; they differ 

 from other zoophytes in chemical composition, for, on being 

 burned, they emit the smell of vegetable matter, neither do 

 they contain a volatile salt or animal oil ; the pores observable 

 in their calcareous portion are too small to be the habitations 

 of polypes, and similar pores can be detected on Fuci ; no 

 polypes nor any visible token of life could be discovered by 

 Jussieu in any coralline, a species of which, moreover, a Mr. 



Lin. Corresp. vol. i. p. 226. 



t Lin. Corresp. vol. i. p. 260. 



J " Princeps in hac classe opus." Hall. Bib. Bot. ii. 566. 



" Didicimus in zoophytis, sic jure vocandis, vegetabilem naturam cum animali ita 

 misceri, ut vere anceps et dubia passim sit," &c. Elenc. Zooph. praef. viii. The In- 

 troduction to the work is headed, " De zoophytorum intermedia natura et inventione." 

 His ideas of the Natural System are given in an interesting passage at pp. 23, 24, 

 which is too long for quotation in this place. 



