ANATOMY. 115 



87. 



Experience has instructed us that every organism is not only tran- 

 sitory in its duration, but that it also requires the assimilation of fresh 

 matter, if it is to be preserved from perishing immediately after its 

 appearance. To meet this necessity nature has furnished every organic 

 body with two different sets of organs, which are called systems, the 

 one of which provides for the preservation of the individual by means 

 of nutriment, and is thence called the NUTRIMENTAL SYSTEM, and 

 the other for the continuance of its resemblance, or kind, and which is 

 called the RE- PRODUCTIVE SYSTEM. Both systems, therefore, are the 

 essential peculiarity of every organic body, and without them no 

 organism can be imagined. 



88. 



Indeed, the very lowest organic bodies, plants, display no other 

 organs than such as belong to these two systems; but the animal 

 destined to a higher grade of organisation adds to the phenomena of 

 vegetable life two new proofs of its vitality, and which must be treated 

 as the results of a greater freedom of nature. This liberty displays 

 itself at once in its independence of its original place of abode, by the 

 power it possesses of constantly changing it; in fact, the power of 

 LOCOMOTION is the first and principal peculiarity of the animal, and this 

 power also qualifies the second phenomenon peculiar to animal life. 

 If, namely, the animal is to make an advantageous use of the freedom 

 it derives from its power of locomotion, and if it be to be secured 

 against all the disadvantages consequent upon this power, it must 

 necessarily possess faculties which apprise it of the nature of its situa- 

 tion, and these it has received in the organs of SENSATION. Both, 

 consequently, the organs of locomotion and sensation, are peculiar to 

 the animal, and wholly wanting to the plant, whilst the organs of 

 nutriment and re-production are common to both. 



89. 



And as the organs of nutriment and re-production are first observed 

 in the plant, and as the whole vegetable kingdom displays no higher 

 development of life, they are distinguished as VEGETATIVE ORGANS, and 

 their circle of action the VEGETATIVE SPHERE. Whereas the organs 

 of locomotion and sensation, as the exclusive peculiarities of the animal, 



i2 



