LECTURE I. 25 



to the general metaphysical notions we have 

 formerly learned, reason strongly against the pos- 

 sibility of S^Lich a fact ; but, as I have myself for^ 

 merly confessed my distrust of the truth of some of 

 those principles, I shall now make no scruple of 

 acknowledging that I have already seen so many 

 strange things in Nature, that I am become very 

 cautious in affirming what may, or what may not 

 possibly be. The most common operations of 

 Nature in the animal and vegetable world are all 

 in themselves astonishing, and nothing but daily 

 experience and constant observation makes us see 

 without amazement an animal produce another 

 of the same kind, or a tree blossom, and produce 

 leaves and fruit. 



The same observation, and daily experience, 

 make it also familiar to us, that, besides the first 

 way of increasing vegetables from their respective 

 seeds, they are also increased by cuttings; and 

 every one knows that a twig of a willow, cut off, 

 and placed in the ground, does presently take root 

 and grow, and by degrees becomes as much a real 

 and perfect tree as the original one from which it 

 was taken. 



Here is then, in the vegetable kingdom, a fa- 

 miliar instance of the very example hitherto un- 



