MONSTERS IN VEGETABLES. 241 



the first setting out being wrong, and [the formation] going on in the 

 same [wrong] line. The principle of crystallization is in the solution ; 

 yet it requires more to set it a going, or into action, such, e. g., as a 

 solid surface. The deficiency in the production of a true crystal may 

 be in the solution itself ; or, I can conceive, that a very slight circum- 

 stance might alter the form of a crystal, and even give the disposition 

 for one [crystal] to form upon another. Quickness in the progress of 

 crystallization produces irregularity and diminution in size. Crystalli- 

 zation, moreover, arises out of the property of the parts to compose the 

 crystal, and the effect is more similar to art than the increase of either 

 a vegetable or animal. 



Monsters in Vegetables. 



The formation of a vegetable is, in its manner, very different from 

 that of a crystal, although somewhat similar in effect. It takes its 

 rise from a peculiar modification of matter, having a power of action 

 within itself, capable of changing matter into its own kind, and dis- 

 posing it for the increase. But the increase is somewhat similar to that 

 of the crystal, for it is laid on the outside of the part already formed, 

 increasing the size of the whole both in thickness and length, but prin- 

 cipally the last. 



In the vegetable Nature has not been so attentive to the constant 

 uniformity in the formation, situation, and construction of parts, as in 

 the animal ; and therefore such variety is more frequent than in the 

 animal. Perhaps there are few vegetables but have something of 

 a variety in them, because they are bound to no regularity in the num- 

 ber of their parts : but they are pretty perfect with respect to the bad 

 form of their parts 1 ; the parts, whether supernumerary or not, being- 

 pretty perfect in their form : for, in vegetables, an exact uniformity 

 was not wanted ; because all the parts have nearly the same use, which 

 is not the case with animals. Each part in an animal has a use 

 appropriated to itself; from which [circumstance] supernumerary parts 

 become of no use, and deficiency is an evil. 



The frequency of this variation in vegetables seems to arise from a 

 vegetable being at all times under the influence of that principle which 

 is capable of producing a variety when the immediate cause is present ; 

 for this principle exists as long as a vegetable has the power of forming 

 a new part, which is as long as it grows ; because a vegetable can, and 

 is always producing new parts. For besides the growth of the new 



1 [Meaning that they are less subject to malformation, than to abnormal number , 

 of parts.] 



E 



