INFUSORIA. 167 



tilde, or capability of uniting into living masses, 

 and constituting, therefore, the essential elements 

 of all organization. According to this view, all vege- 

 tables or animals in existence would be mere aggre- 

 gations of infusory animalcules, which gradually 

 accumulate by continual additions to their num- 

 bers derived from organic matter in the food : so 

 that the body of man himself would be nothing 

 more than a vast congregation of monads! 



This bold and fanciful hypothesis, devised by 

 BufFon, and recommended by its seductive appear- 

 ance of simplicity, as well as by the brilliant style 

 and glowing imagination of its author, has had 

 many zealous partizans. The new world, which 

 was disclosed to the wondering eyes of naturalists 

 by the microscope, abounding in objects and in 

 phenomena of which no conception could have 

 been formed previously to the invention of that 

 instrument, was peculiarly calculated to excite 

 curiosity, and to inspire the hope of its revealing 

 the secret of the living principle in the arrange- 

 ment of the atoms of organic bodies. During the 

 greater part of the last century, infusory animal- 

 cules were the subject of frequent and laborious 

 microscopical research, and gave rise to endless 

 conjecture and speculation as to their origin, their 

 vitality, and their functions in the economy of na- 

 ture. Notwithstanding their minuteness, consider- 

 able difterences of organization were perceived to 

 exist among them : but many naturalists still clung 

 to the idea that monads, the most diminutive of the 

 tribe, and whose very presence can be detected 

 only by the application of the highest magnifying 

 powers, are homogeneous globules of living matter, 



