how the same analogy holds good in the lower tribes; to multiply instances would swell these pages unduly and unnecessarily. The paper* recently read by Professor Forbes, at the meeting of the British Association at York, contains, as far as can be gathered from the abstract given of it in the Literary Gazette for October 19th, 1844, some very curious information bearing on this branch of the subject. From that abstract the analogy between "the formation of the parts of the flower out of transformed leaves," and a corresponding phenomenon in "one tribe at least of composite animals," seems to be manifested strongly in the cases on which Professor Forbes has grounded his novel views of the subject. Connected also with this part of Vegetable Physiology is a paper of Dr. Martin Barry's, in the Phil. Trans. for 1842, Pt. 1 ;t in which he traces considerable analogy, not to say identity of form, between animal and vegetable fibre, and especially in one peculiar portion; the following extract will be found interesting: "It is known that vegetable tissue presents, in some parts, a feature which has heretofore seemed wanting, or nearly so, in that of animals, -the spiral form. I venture to believe that some appearances met with in my investigations, may go far towards supplying this deficiency." Dr. Barry has given plates of these appearances as they are found "in the nervous tissue, in muscle, in minute blood-vessels, and in the crystaline lens." "On the Mosychology of the Reproductive System of the Sutularian Zoophytes, and its analogy with the Reproductive System of the Flowering Plants." Prof. Forbes has a paper with a similar title in the 93d No. of the "Annals and Mag. of Nat. History" for Dec. 1844, and there are some curious observations on the same subject also contained in a paper by Mr. Couch, in the "Annals" for March, 1845. +On Fibre." 82. The power of vitality, so wonderfully conspicuous in the vegetable kingdom, which enables a seed to retain its vegetating power though dormant for many years, has a remarkable analogy with the revivification of some of the animalcules. "The Rotifer redivivus, or wheel animalcule, can live only in water, and is commonly found in that which has remained stagnant for some time in the gutters of houses. But it may be deprived of this fluid, and reduced to perfect dryness, so that all the functions of life shall be completely suspended, yet without the destruction of the vital principle; for this atom of dust, after remaining for years in a dry state, may be revived in a few minutes by being again supplied with water."* Other animalcules exhibit the same phenomenon; and the analogy is still further carried on by the fact well known to gardeners, that seeds which have been long kept, will vegetate more surely if soaked for some time in water before they are planted. Every discovery in whatever science, seems more and more clearly to point to simplicity of Design and Unity of purpose in nature:-Where the same course and method will accomplish a similar end, a different one seems never to be adopted. All the researches of modern physical science, though they may place new objects and new substances within our view, tend to lessen, not enlarge the list of elementary bodies;-and all investigations into the organized parts of creation teach us to refer more and more to a few simple principles, modified, indeed, by the nature and requirements of each species, but all pointing to the same law, which appears to prevail throughout the universe, that nothing shall be unnecessarily complicated. * Roget, Anim. and Veget. Phys., vol i. p. 62. CONCLUSION. THE great Linnæus, to whom the whole race of naturalists must ever feel largely indebted, was the first who struck out a method that has permanently continued, for the classification of plants. This system (of which the great outlines or classes are given in a tabular view in the Appendix (A), is grounded on the arrangements of the reproductive organs, and although it is in a great measure artificial, yet nevertheless it is so practically useful, that it has hitherto maintained its ground, and may probably continue to do so in great measure, although there are serious objections to it; chiefly because, being artificial, it does not lead a student to the knowledge of the properties, &c., of plants, but only enables him to identify and arrange them. A sense of the insufficiency of this method has led modern systematists to form a classification, called the Natural System, because founded on the natural affinities, characters, and habits of plants, which is much better calculated to afford a real insight into the Vegetable Kingdom. It would be impracticable within the limits of a work like the present, to give any detailed account of either system, especially of the natural arrangement, whose characters not being arbitrary, require, in order to be understood at all, a fullness of description inconsistent with brevity. Neither would such an account of botanical systems come within the twofold object of this little treatise, whose aim is to give the reader such an acquaintance with the wonderful structure of a large part of the world around him, as may enhance his pleasure in contemplating it; and still more to draw his attention to that unity of purpose, palpable in the whole provision for the sustenance and comfort of all his fellow inhabitants on our earth. If this work and its predecessor on Organic Chemistry, have been read attentively, it will have been seen that water, the soil of the earth and the action of the air, furnish the materials from which plants obtain their nourishment; that without their intervention, the whole inferior animal race would have been destitute of food; and that man not only obtains a large portion of his sustenance immediately from them, but that they serve to elaborate such matter from the inorganic substances around them, as is then, and not till then, capable of affording him the sort of food he needs, whether derived directly from the plants themselves, or furnished by them indirectly through the animals they support, and on whom he depends for nutriment. Who can look on the principal constituents of plants, i. e., carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, and contemplate their gradual transformation into vegetable albumen, and vegetable caseine,* or on any of the elementary forms of the nitrogenized compounds, so absolutely essential, directly or indirectly, to animal life, without feeling that nothing stands alone in this world, but that “the chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown." And even should it also occur to the mind, that the same process ceases not with us, but that these human bodies, thus marvelously made and nourished, are, even the organs by which the high functions of the brain are performed, material and perishable, and that" we feed ourselves to feed the worms," and, being dust, * "Introduction to Organic Chemistry," p. 33. return literally to that dust again; let us not pause on the threshold of the argument, where despondency might await us, but go boldly on through the portal, and calmly consider what deduction we may draw, by the simple light of reason, from this undeniable truth. We see that everything around us here, when it has accomplished the end of its being, is not annihilated, but only transformed into some other state, in which it still continues to work out the will of Him who created it; every material thing perfectly fulfils its destined purpose; but Man has that within which assures him that here he neither is nor does all that the soul could be and perform, were it disencumbered of the body in its present grosser state. Has he not then the strongest reason to confide in Him who gave that body for good purposes here, that He will, at its dissolution, still make it subservient to his wise intentions, and after he separates it from its present union with the soul, will assuredly place his rational creature in a condition to be and to do all for which that creature was made? Man would then no longer be the exception to the rest of sentient beings; their wishes and desires are so arranged, that the means of their gratification are within their reach on earth; we, on the contrary, feel aspirations which never can be fully gratified here, and whose very existence foreshows a time when they will have their fruition. The moral consequence we may draw from this is almost too obvious to require notice. If we look forward to a state in which the body shall be so changed that its present enjoyments can exist no more, while those of the soul shall last for ever, how important is it that the Will, which triumphs over everything that is material in us, should be so regulated, that when that state arrives, it may not |