Microscopical Essays. 397 



ftrongly againft the poffibility of fuch a fact • but I have myfelf 

 owned, on other occafions, my diftruft of the truth, or certainty 

 at lead, of fome of thofe principles, and I mall make no fcruple of 

 acknowledging, that I have already feen fo many ftrange things 

 in nature, that I am become very diffident of all general affer- 

 tions, and very cautious in affirming what may or may not 

 poffibly be. The moft common operations, both of the animal 

 and vegetable world, are all in themfelves aftonifhing, and 

 nothing but daily experience and conftant observation can make 

 us fee, without amazement, an animal bring forth another of the 

 fame kind, or a tree bloffom and bear leaves and fruit. 



st The fame obfervation and experience make it alfo familiar to 

 us, that befides the firft way of propagating vegetables from their 

 refpective fruit and feed, they are alfo propagated from cuttings, 

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

 and only ftuck into the ground, does prefently take root and 

 grow, and become as real and perfect a tree as the original one 

 from which it was taken. Here then we find in the vegetable 

 kingdom, quite common, the very thing of which we have an ex- 

 ample before us in the animal kingdom, in this new-difeovered 

 infect. The beft philofophers have long obferved ftrong ana- 

 logies between thefe two daffies of beings; and the more they 

 have penetrated into nature, the more they have extended this 

 analogy : now in fuch a fcale, who is the man that will be bold 

 to fay, juft here animal life entirely ends, and here vegetable life 

 begins? or, juft fo far, and no farther, one fort of operation 

 goes; and juft here another fort, quite different, takes it's place ? 

 or again, who will venture to fay, life in every animal is a thing 

 abfolutely different from that which we dignify by the fame name 

 4 in 



