VEGETATIVE ORGANS. 117 



c. The NERVOUS SYSTEM OF THE DIGESTIVE ORGANS ; 



d. The ORGANS OF THE SENSES. 



We consequently commence our description with the vegetative 

 organs, as being the inferior ; and thence proceed to the survey of the 

 animal organs, as the superior ones. But we do not wish by this 

 arrangement to imply that the lowest insects have no organs of locomo- 

 tion and sensation, but that in them both these organs, and also par- 

 tially the vegetative ones, are not quite so perfectly developed and 

 completely combined as in the higher orders, and from the circumstance 

 of this difference the latter stand HIGHER and the former LOWER in 

 the system. And by these expressions, as well as by the synonymous 

 ones, of MORE or LESS PERFECT, we would indicate that the structure 

 of the former is more complex, artificial, and various than the groups 

 characterised as standing lower and less perfect. But each group is 

 perfect in its kind. 



FIRST SUBSECTION. 



VEGETATIVE ORGANS. 



91. 



THE organs of the vegetative sphere are, as it were, transmitted 

 from the plant to the animal ; it will therefore be not unimportant if 

 we can prove that their fundamental texture displays a vegetable 



origin. 



The plant commences its existence in the form of a cell ; cell is 

 added to cell, and the entire vegetable is but a congeries of small cells, 

 with here and there long delicate tubes interspersed, forming, as it 

 were, free passages between them. All the organs of vegetables consist 

 of these two forms, consequently the nutrimental and re-productive 

 organs must display a similar, or at least an analogous, structure, if 

 they are to prove themselves of vegetable origin. Nothing, in fact, is 

 more astonishing than the confirmation of this law ; for cells, which in 

 animals become small vesicles or larger bladders, and tubes, constitute 

 the various forms of the vegetative organs. A vesicle, the egg, is the 



