FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. 



tradict each other than he can contradict him- 

 self. 



But let me endeavour to emerge from this 

 ocean in which I seem to have lost myself, and, 

 recovering my station upon terra jfirma, direct 

 the attention of the reader to the lovely tribes 

 that adorn every part and portion of this our 

 destined but brief abode, I mean to the vegetable 

 kingdom ; we see how they cover earth, that not 

 a spot can be found, of which in time they do 

 not possess themselves, and that the more we 

 extend our inquiries the more numerous are the 

 individual species with which we become ac- 

 quainted. This being the case upon earth, 

 reasoning from analogy, we may conclude that 

 something similar takes place in the ocean ; that 

 could our discoveries be extended under the sea 

 as easily as they are upon land; could we traverse 

 the bed and waters of the great deep with the 

 same facility that we do the surface of the earth, 

 we should find the numbers of vegetables that 

 respire, in some sense, the air, fall short perhaps 

 of those plant-like animals that respire the water. 

 And could we examine the individual species of 

 which this infinite host consists, and compare 

 their organizations, we should find as great a 

 difference in the instruments and organs by 

 which their life is supported and their kind con- 

 tinued, as in the animals themselves ; and yet 

 in all this diversity should trace a harmony and 



