Mycological System

The same principles are followed, in such a way that the inferior things (e.g., external form, which is still vague in the lowest ones) yield to the superior ones. Therefore, they err who draw the highest distinctions only from external form; who could define the animal and vegetable kingdoms from this? Lichens and Fungi demonstrate this most evidently If one were to neglect the more perfect life expressed in spontaneity, Monas, etc., could also be numbered among the fungi from external characters. There exists no difference in form, for example, between Mucedines and Algae, etc., to infinity.. More recent authors, placing the difference of these only in external characters, wished to join Leprariae, Opegraphae, Calicia, Verrucariae, etc., with the Fungi, which I could in no way approve. The difference of these must be deduced more deeply. But since nature progresses everywhere by the same path between Lichens and Fungi, a single genus of Lichen corresponds to the Fungi. But we do not call these affine; rather, we call them analogous.

Therefore, things are affine which follow in the same series and seem to pass into one another. These concur in later aspects but differ in prior reasons. We call analogous, however, those which are placed in parallel positions in different series and correspond to one another. The ultimate cosmic moments differ, but the prior ones concur, which are most powerful in changing external habit and accidental characters. Wherever we turn our eyes in Natural History, a single organism offers multiple examples of this. The mycological system, explained below, relies entirely on these.