14 INTRODUCTION TO 



and animal matter ; that the vegetable was formed from and supported 

 by the matter of the globe, as a medium between the globe itself and 

 the animals ; for without the vegetable the land animal could not exist. 

 But, in the waters, more especially the sea, the more inferior orders of 

 animals are the support of the more perfect, answering to the vegetables 

 on land ; and being well adapted to that office, the more perfect [sea- 

 animals] being larger and fewer in number : and, as water alone appeared 

 to be capable of supporting a vegetable, I observed, that water was the 

 intermediate medium between earth and vegetable. There is great 

 reason to suppose that water may be converted immediately into animal 

 matter by the animal, and that air is only necessary for the completion 

 of animal matter, let it be formed from whatever materials ; therefore 

 air is not necessary simply as nourishment, yet may be added to it to 

 complete it. 



As water appears to be capable of supporting both the vegetable and 

 the animal, but more particularly the vegetable, but the animal ulti- 

 mately through the vegetable, it must be supposed to be as great a 

 compound as any substance whatever that has no water in its composi- 

 tion ; yet, to appearance, water is the simplest ; but it must be of itself 

 a compound of every species of matter into which we find it capable 

 of being converted. And, a vegetable or an animal being formed out 

 of it, proves it. For, there must be in water all the materials for 

 forming either a vegetable or an animal body ; and, [in its relation] as 

 nourishment to either, it can only be deficient in quantity, not quality. 



How far it is possible to make experiments that would prove it im- 

 possible that anything else could go into the composition of a vegetable 

 or animal save water, I will not at present determine. If water [is such] 

 a compound, then Chemistry, we might suppose, could be so applied as 

 to produce out of it all the different substances we find in either vege- 

 table or animal matter ; but I should be inclinable to imagine that the 

 same variety of species of matter, when combined in one way, would 

 give a very different result when combined in another ; and vegetables 

 and animals formed from water would give very different results from 

 chemical analysis. 



The late experiments in Chemistry have gone far to analyse water, 

 even to form it ; for, from Mr. Cavendish's experiment, it woidd appear 

 to be composed of common and inflammable air, the proportion of com- 

 mon to that of inflammable being as one to two and one-fourth*. 



These combinations of matter form species having specific names 

 given them, as Wood, Brass, Clay, &c, to which nothing can be added 



* Phil. Trans, vol. lxxir. part 1, p. 119, 1784. [winch shows that this MS. was 

 written within ten years of Hunter's death.] 



