12 
REPORT ON BOTANY, MDCCCXLl : 
the first hundred pages of the sixth volume of his chemistry 
occur to Berzelius when writing these words, and produce a 
blush of shame in him for such a judgment 
The author then proceeds to the chemical qualities of many 
vegetable substances, and draws the following conclusions 
therefrom, which I will enumerate verbatim, in order that 
they may be understood : — 1st, “ The vegetable substances, 
which are usually enumerated as indifferent ones (amphotere), 
and which belong to the series of starch, form only a very 
scanty selection of the infinite variety of materials, belonging 
to the same degree of development, which occur in plants. 
2dly, The plant forms a chemical elementary matter in its 
vegetation (no allusion is meant hereby to the old nonsense of 
primitive mucus), which remains the same, in all stages of the 
process of vegetation, with regard to its elementary composi- 
tion ; but is, however, capable of infinite modifications, owing 
to internal changes, which are imperceptible, and altogether 
unknown to us, partially, also, to the increase and diminution 
of the water combined with it ; the number of which depends 
on the number of atoms of water which associate themselves 
with it, and also on different combinations of elements, but 
which, for the present, appear to us as a constant series of 
different states, the nearest members of which do not appear 
to us to differ materially. The lowest of these members is 
sugar, the highest the perfectly developed substance of the 
membranes, — a series, the members of which become more 
insoluble in water as they rise from below upwards, so that, 
under certain circumstances, the gelatine from the cellular 
substance crystallizes from without in an organic form.” (See 
Schwann’s Microscopical Besearches, &c., p. 220.) 
It appears to me very advisable, however, to have recourse 
again to the chemists. 
There is a report of a treatise of M. Payen “ Sur la Com- 
(Berlin, 1839) ; in which he adopts Schleiden’s opinion with regard to 
the cytoblast, without any further scrutiny, and now endeavours to trace 
a similarity in the animal kingdom. Respecting it, see my Propylaen of 
Natural History ; Berlin, 1839. 
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