206 OERMES OF FUNGI. 



fongi ; and they carry on their labours, growing at 

 the tops summer and winter, and decaying at the 

 bottoms, till they form a soil often many feet in 

 thickness, and sometimes rising higher than any of 

 the neighbouring grounds. 



Those invisible seeded plants, as well as some of 

 the animals which are minute in their size, peculiar 

 in their situations, and widely different in their forms 

 and habits from those quadrupeds and birds with 

 which we are most familiar, and which have become, 

 as it were, the types of animals generally, in com- 

 mon language, have given occasion, not only to a be- 

 lief that there is organic matter in so neutral a state 

 as that it may of itself become a land or a water 

 plant, according as it falls in the one situation or the 

 other, but also that there is inorganic matter so 

 nearly approaching to vitality that it not only can 

 but actually does, become alive of itself. That is a 

 doctrine which is not only believed among those 

 who have no pretensions to natural knowledge, but 

 it is always now and then appearing under different 

 modifications among those who have ; and therefore 

 it is one against which beginners in the useful study 

 of nature should be particularly on their guard. It 

 is as much as saying that certain kinds of matter 

 can, without the agency of any thing else, give them- 

 selves new qualities qualities which were not 

 merely previously unknown, but which actually did 

 not exist. Now if that be true of any one kind of 

 matter, be that what it may, there is no denying it to 

 any and every kind of matter ; and if that were the 

 case, we should have all the species of matter con- 

 founded and jumbled together ; and that is a conclu- 

 sion against which we should most especially be on 

 our guard, because it would unhinge all our natural 

 knowledge. 



When we come to examine plants and animals, and 

 reflect upon the immense variety which they pre- 

 sent, in size, in structure, and in habits, we cannot 



