PHYSIOLOGY OF LIFE. 75 



they flutter, or of the stems and pedicles, to which they 

 adhere. Beyond and above this step, Nature seems to act 

 with a sort of free agency, and to have formed the classes 

 from choice and bounty. Had she proceeded no further, 

 yet the whole vegetable, together with the whole insect 

 creation, would have formed within themselves an entire 

 and independent system of Life. All plants have insects, 

 most commonly each genus of vegetables its appropriate 

 genera of insects ; and so reciprocally interdependent and 

 necessary to each other are they, that we can almost as 

 little think of vegetation without insects, as of insects 

 without vegetation. Though probably the mere likeness 

 of shape, in the papilio, and the papilionaceous plants, sug- 

 gested the idea of the former, as the latter in a state of 

 detachment, to our late poetical and theoretical brother ; 

 yet a something, that approaches to a graver plausibility, 

 is given to this fancy of a flying blossom ; when we reflect 

 how many plants depend upon insects for their fructi- 

 fication. Be it remembered, too, that with few and very 

 obscure exceptions, the irritable power and an analogon 

 of voluntary motion first dawn on us in the vegetable 

 world, in the stamina, and anthers, at the period of im- 

 pregnation. Then, as if Nature had been encouraged by 

 the success of the first experiment, both the one and the 

 other appear as predominance and general character. 



THE INSECT WORLD IS THE EXPONENT OF IRRITABILITY, 

 AS THE VEGETABLE IS OF REPRODUCTION. 



With the ascent in power, the intensity of individuation 

 keeps even pace; and from this we may explain all the 

 characteristic distinctions between this class and that of 

 the vermes. The almost homogeneous jelly of the ani- 



