420 INANIMATE BODIES AND VEGETABLES. 



magnitude, nor can he boast of more perfection than the gnat or 

 the thistle in their kinds. 



Bodies consist of Particles endowed with certain properties 

 without which their existence cannot be conceived, viz. extension 

 and impenetrability; with others which proceed indeed from 

 their existence, but are capable of being subdued by opposing 

 energies, viz. mobility, inertness ; and with others apparently 

 neither necessary to their existence nor flowing from it, but 

 merely superadded, for example, various attractions and repul- 

 sions, various powers of affecting animated systems. 



Inanimate Bodies have no properties which are not either ana- 

 logous to these or dependent upon them, are for the most part 

 homogeneous in their composition, and disposed to be flat and 

 angular, increase by external accretion, and contain within them- 

 selves no causes of decay. 



Vegetables, in addition to the properties of inanimate matter, 

 possess those of LIFE, viz. sensibility, (without consciousness or 

 perception) and contractility:* their structure, is beautifully 

 organised, and their surfaces disposed to be rounded, they grow 

 by internal deposition, and are destined in their nature for a 

 period of increase and decay. 



Animals, in addition to the properties of vegetables, enjoy 

 MIND, the indispensable attributes of which are the powers of 

 consciousness, perception, and volition : the two former without 

 the latter, were, like vegetable or organic sensibility without 

 contractility, useless 5 and the latter could not exist without the 

 two former f any more than vegetable or organic contraction 

 could occur without sensibility : nor can the existence of mind 



* By the former, stimuli act upon them, and by the latter, they upon sti- 

 muli . by the sensibility and contractility of the vessels, substances are taken 

 up by the roots, and circulated through the system, and converted into tlie various 

 parts of the vegetable. Yet this does not imply perception, consciousness, or 

 will. The sensibility and contractility of the absorbents and secretories of our 

 own system carry on absorption and secretion without our consciousness or 

 rolition. 



f " Sense," says Hamlet to his mother, " sure you have, 



Else could you not have motion." Act III. Sc. 4. 



