BRUTES. 421 



be conceived without the faculties of consciousness, perception, 

 and volition, any more than the existence of matter without 

 extension and impenetrability. The possession of mind by animals 

 necessarily implies the presence of a brain for its exertion, and 

 of a nerve or nerves for the purpose of conveying impressions to 

 this brain and at least volitions from it to one or more voluntary 

 muscles. A system which is not thus gifted certainly deserves 

 not the name of animal.* 



Notwithstanding the vast interval which of necessity exists 

 between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, the lowest brutes 

 approach as nearly as possible in organisation, and consequently 

 in function, to vegetable simplicity. They possess merely con- 

 sciousness, perception, and volition, with the appetite for food, 



* I cannot conceive an animal without consciousness, perception, and 

 volition ; nor can I conceive these m an animal without a brain, any 

 more than the secretion of bile without a liver or something analogous. 

 I contend not for the name, but for the thing. Zoologists indeed affirm 

 that many internal worms and all the class of zoophytes have no nervous 

 system. But comparative anatomy is yet imperfect, the examination of 

 minute parts is extremely difficult, and new organs are daily discovered. 

 Blumenbach, after remarking that, except those animals which inhabit corals 

 and the proper zoophytes, most genera of the other orders of the Linnaean class 

 of vermes are found to possess a distinct nervous system, adds: " Although 

 former anatomists have expressly declared in several instances that no such 

 parts existed." (Comparative Anatomy , ch. cxvi. F.) Besides, some beings have 

 been denominated animals without any very satisfactory reason. 



Where the nervous system of an animal cannot be readily detected, its pre- 

 sence may be inferred from motions evidently voluntary, such as retraction 

 upon the approach of footsteps, proving the existence of an organ of hearing, 

 a brain, and nerves : motion in a part directly stimulated, as the contraction 

 of an hydatid upon being punctured, is no proof of an animal nature, for this 

 is common to vegetables, for instance, the leaves of the Dionesa Mustipula, 

 which contract forcibly on a slight irritation. It may likewise be inferred 

 from the presence of a stomach, because, where there is a stomach, the food is 

 taken in, not by absorbing vessels constantly plunged in it, but by a more or less 

 complicated and generally solitary opening regulated by volition. John Hunter 

 contended that the stomach was the grand characteristic of the animal kingdom. 



