160 



and divide into moving globules,* which trail afier 

 them something like long tails, which are in truth 

 only strings of the viscid matter, from among which 

 the globules were separated. By degrees the glo- 

 bules get rid o_f them, autf then move at ease. 



< This vegetable power of shooting into filaments, 

 is in all animal and vegetable substances, down to the 

 ieast microscopic point. And to this is really owing 

 all that is called animal life, in the fluids produced 

 from vegetables. 



" In all our observations on these substances the 

 whole quantity of matter, after a separation of som& 

 volatile and saline parts, always divides into filaments 

 and vegetates into numberless 2;oph\ts, which af- 

 terwards yield all the species of microscopic animals. 

 After this, those supposed animals themselves subside 

 to the bottom of the liquor, become mo:ionless, re- 

 solve into a gelatinous filamentous substance, and 

 then afford new zoophytes, or animals of a smaller 

 kind. 



u Hence we may observe, that every animal or 

 vegetable substance, advances as f iht ii can, to resolve 

 hi to one common principle, which is th** source of 

 all, a kind of universal semen, from which eatvi a* m 

 may again ascend to a new life. These a umaicula 

 then in the semen of animals, and m the infusions a ,d 

 juices of animal and vegetable subs' auce?., are not of 

 the nature of any other beings, nor to i>e ranked 

 with them. They constitute a class a^a-t irona all 

 others, the characteristic of which is, that, they nei- 

 ther are generated, nor subsist by nutriment, like 

 other plants or animals, nor do they generate in the 

 ordinary way." 



What then becomes of this whole boasted branch 

 of modern philosophy ? If this be so, most of our 

 microscopic discoveries vanish into air. 



Blue-flowered Getitianella requires wet weather to 

 be sown in. As soon as any rain touches the seed 

 vessels, they burst open and throw the seed on each 

 side. Card amines burst their pods and dart out the}* 



