ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE TRANSMUTATIONS. 129 



been recently started by continental naturalists, who 

 maintain that vegetables are actually converted into 

 animals, and these again 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 transmuta- 

 tion of lead and other inferior metals into gold and 

 silver; which doctrine was, indeed, supported upon 

 the supposed fact of insects being thus transmuted.* 

 But visionary as either of these may appear, they have 

 both been supported by men of talent and distinguish- 

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

 seem more impossible, that water should be transmu- 

 ted into diamonds, or brass into gold, than that an 

 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 rigid- 

 ly 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 con- 

 trary to all experience, and to the best experiments. 

 We say the best; because observations, if not experi- 

 ments, have been made for the express purpose of 

 proving such improbable transmutations. 



' I have shown to a great number of persons,' says 

 Professor Agardh, c the changeable crow-silk (Con- 

 ferva mutabiliS) ROTH; Draparnaldia m. BORY ST 

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

 by the 5th into molecules endowed with locomobility, 

 reunite by the 6th into simple articulations, and recon- 

 stituted by the 10th into the primitive form of the 

 plant.'! Previous to this (in 1814) Professor Nees 

 von Esenbeck, of Bonn, published similar observa- 



* Sir Theodore May erne, Epist. Dedicat ad Theatrum In- 

 sect. Mouffetii. 



t Agardh, Diss. de Metamorph. Algarum, 1820. 



