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KIDP'S OWN JOURNAL. 



falsehood exists, it destroys nappiness, : 

 paralyses energy, and debases the mind. ' 

 No superiority of intellect can long associate 

 -with this fearful vice. 



The study of truth is perpetually joined 

 with the love of practical virtue. There is 

 no virtue which derives not its origin from 

 truth ; as, on the contrary, there is no vice 

 which has not its beginning in a lie. Truth 

 is the foundation of all knowledge. It leads 

 at once to the love of God, and is the cement 

 of all well-regulated societies. 



A choice lies before us. Let us choose 

 well and wisely. Then will our conscience 

 be an honest one, and our life a life of unin- 

 terrupted enjoyment. The pleasure of doing 

 good may be felt. To talk about it were 

 ostentation. 



LIFE IN ITS LOWEST FORMS. 



THE SPONGES. 



Among the organisms (the position of 

 which has been most debated) are some very 

 familiar to us, from our habitual employment 

 of some of the species for domestic purposes. 

 They constitute the extensive and widely- 

 distributed class Porifera, or the Sponges, 

 the history of which is curious. We shall 

 not enumerate the names or record the 

 opinions of the controversialists who have 

 contended for scientific dominion over these 

 bodies ; naturalists of the highest eminence 

 have been arrayed on each side. We shall 

 content ourselves with giving the judgment 

 of Dr. Johnston, the learned historian of 

 British Sponges, and one well worthy of being 

 listened to with respect ; and we quote him 

 the rather because his decisions, while they 

 tersely exhibit the real merits of the case, 

 have so yielded to accumulated evidence as 

 to shift from the side first advocated to the 

 opposite. 



When the "History of the British Zoo- 

 phytes" was published, the author omitted 

 the Sponges, and gave the following summary 

 of his reasons for so doing : " If they are not 

 the productions of Polypes, the zoologist 

 who retains them in his province must con- 

 tend that they are, individually, animals ; an 

 opinion to which I cannot assent, seeing that 

 they have no animal structure or individual 

 organs, and exhibit no one function usually 

 supposed to be characteristic of the animal 

 kingdom. Like vegetables, they are perma- 

 nently fixed ; like vegetables, they are non- 

 irritable ; their movements, like those of 

 vegetables, are extrinsical and involuntary ; 

 their nutriment is elaborated in no appro- 

 priated digestive sac ; and, like cryptogamous 

 vegetables, or algse, they usually grow and 

 ramify in forms determined by local circum- 

 stances ; and if they present some peculiari- 



ties in the mode of the imbibition of their 

 food and in their secretions, yet even in these 

 they evince a nearer affinity to plants than 

 any animal whatever." 



A few years later, however, the learned 

 writer published his " History of British 

 Sponges," in the introduction to which he 

 elaborately examines the whole question, 

 concluding with the following verdict : "Few, 

 on examining the green Spongilla, would hesi- 

 tate to pronounce it a vegetable, a conclu- 

 sion which the exacter examination of the 

 naturalist seems to have proved to be 

 correct ; and when we pass on from it to an 

 examination of the calcareous and siliceous 

 marine genera, the impression is not so much 

 weakened but that we can still say with Pro- 

 fessor Owen, ' that if a line could be drawn 

 between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, 

 the Sponges should be placed upon the vege- 

 table side of that line.' We shall possibly, 

 however, arrive at an opposite conclusion if, 

 proceeding in our inquiry, we follow the sili- 

 ceous species, insensibly gliding, on the one 

 hand, into the fibro-corneous Sponge, filled 

 with its mucilaginous fishy slime, and, on the 

 other, into the fleshy Tethya, in whose oscula 

 the first signs of an obscure irritability show 

 themselves. Sponges, therefore, appear to 

 be true zoophytes ; and it imparts additional 

 interest to their study to consider them, as 

 they probably are, the first matrix and cradle 

 of organic life, and exhibiting before us the 

 lowest organisations compatible with its ex- 

 istence." 



Many of our readers are probably cognisant 

 of only one kind of Sponge, — the soft, plump, 

 w r oolly, pale-brown article, so indispensable 

 in our dressing-rooms ; or, at the most, two, 

 if they chance to have noticed the large- 

 pored, coarser sort, with which grooms wash 

 carriages. It may surprise such persons to 

 be informed that the streams, and shores of 

 the British Isles produce upwards of sixty 

 distinct species of Sponge ; and that every 

 coast, especially in the tropical seas, where 

 they are very numerous and varied, has 

 species peculiar to itself. 



A Sponge, as it is used in domestic eco- 

 nomy, is merely a skeleton ; it is the solid 

 frame-work which in life supported the softer 

 flesh. This skeleton is composed of one of 

 the following substances, — flint, lime, or a 

 peculiar horny matter. The first two are 

 crystallised, and take the appearance of 

 spicular needles either simple or compound, 

 varying greatly as to their length, thickness, 

 shape, and curvature, but constant in form in 

 the same species. The horny matter, of 

 which the common domestic Sponge affords 

 an example, is arranged in slender, elastic, 

 translucent, tough, solid fibres, united to 

 each other irregularly at various points, and 

 in every direction, and thus forming an open 



