ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 131 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ANIMALS AND PLANTS. THE PSEUDO-INFUSORIA, THEIR 

 PLANT-NATURE. THE PLANT-LIKE INFUSORIA. 



IN the consideration of this matter, I come now to the explana- 

 tion which, in a previous lecture, I promised to give you in regard 

 to the meaning of the "merging of the clouds " of the Jive grand 

 divisions. You will recollect that I stated that although some 

 considered the five grand divisions as so many distinct groups, 

 yet an equally large class of naturalists looked upon these di- 

 visions as so many subdivisions which have more or less inti- 

 mate relations with each other, as if they were the components of 

 a vast cloud which is divided intone masses, having their edges 

 mutually merged into each other. Now I think that you will 

 best comprehend the meaning of these relations, as to whether 

 they are those of consanguinity, or ideal, when I have explained 

 the relations of the classes or minor groups of each grand divis- 

 ion. There are two distinct considerations to be held here : the 

 one is whether these five grand divisions are related in the same 

 sense as are the classes of each division, or whether they have 

 a different relation, and what that relation is. 



Now, as this distinction is based upon the very foundation of 

 the animal kingdom, I must go back to first principles, and, as 

 you will see presently, to the investigation of a different kind of 

 life characteristics from those which were concerned in the dis- 

 cussion of the "principle of life" as I termed it in a previous 

 lecture (p. 7). In that lecture I pointed out the distinction which 

 exists between organized bodies, whether animals or plants, on 

 the one hand, and unorganized bodies, mineral and chemical,' on 

 the other. But now we will take up the matter of the distinctive 

 characters between organized life as manifested in one form, the 



