18 DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERS OP ORGANIZED BODIES. 



Vegetable life, present themselves tinder a shape which ap- 

 proaches more or less closely to the globular. From the 

 highest to the lowest, each species has a certain characteristic 

 form, by which it is distinguished ; this form, however, often 

 presents marked diversities at different periods of life, and 

 it is also liable to vary within certain limits among the 

 individuals of which the species is composed. The size of 

 Organized structures, like their form, is restrained within 

 tolerably definite limits, which may nevertheless vary to a 

 certain extent among the individuals of the same species. 

 These limits are most obvious in the higher animals, whilst 

 they seem almost to disappear among certain members 

 both of the Animal and the Vegetable kingdoms, which tend 

 to increase themselves almost indefinitely by a process of 

 gemmation or budding, so as to produce aggregations of 

 enormous size. Such aggregations, however, being formed 

 by the repetition of similar parts, which can maintain their 

 existence when detached from one another, may, in some 

 sense, be regarded as clusters of distinct organisms, rather 

 than as single individuals. Such is the case, for example, 

 with the wide-spreading forest-tree, and with those enormous 

 masses of coral of which reefs and islands are composed in 

 the Polynesian Archipelago. For every separate leaf-bud of 

 the tree, like every single polype of the coral, if detached 

 from its stock, can, under favourable circumstances, perform 

 all the functions of life, and can develop itself into a new 

 fabric resembling that from which it was separated. 



2. The differences between Organized and Inorganic bodies, 

 in regard to their structure, are much more important than 

 those which relate to their external configuration. . Every 

 particle of a mineral substance, in which there has not been 

 a mere mixture of components, exhibits the same properties 

 as those possessed by the whole ; the minutest atom of car- 

 bonate of lime, for instance, has all the properties of a crystal 

 of calc-spar, were it as large as a mountain. Hence it is the 

 essential nature of an Inorganic body that each of its particles 

 possesses a separate individuality, and has no relation but 

 that of juxtaposition to the other particles associated with 

 itself in one mass. The Organized structure, on the other 

 hand, receives^ its designation from being made up of a greater 

 or less number of dissimilar parts or organs ; each of these 



