370 Mr. Burnett's Letter on 



Hence animated nature is composed of three kinds of beings, 

 or, rather, the organic realm affords three several reigns ; the 

 merely vital or vegetating, i. e., Plants or Vegetables : the sen- 

 sual or vital, i. e., Brutes or Animals : and the rational or 

 human, i. e., Man. , /L.ofi 



Now, as the subtile and immaterial parts of nature, H«at, 

 Light, Electricity, Magnetism, Attraction, &c. approach and 

 enter the metorganic circle, although still contained in the in- 

 organic or lifeless realm, to indicate by their position their 

 immateriality ; and as the material enters the organic to furnish 

 matter for life to organize ; so does man, or the rational grade 

 of organic beings, enter the metorganic circle, to indicate his 

 spiritual existence, which raises and distinguishes him from 

 the mere brute animals, which are entirely without it; and the 

 vegetating grade, or Plants, in like manner, proclaim an ana- 

 logous position, their slighter remove from the crystalline pro- 

 ductions of the inorganic realm. 



In each of these reigns, or sub-kingdoms, whether of the 

 organic or inorganic realms, many subordinate distinctions may 

 be traced, the analysis of which, in one direction, has been the 

 object of that series of papers now just brought to a conclusion : 

 and the development of the others must form the subject of 

 future investigations. 



The tables on page 367, and the diagrams on page 366, will 

 suffice, as a cons[)ective view of the connexions and inter- 

 alliances which these have been intended to point out. 



Cuvier has well observed, '' I do not believe that the mam- 

 malia and birds, placed last, are the most imperfect of their 

 class ; still less do I think that the last of the mammiferfe are 

 superior to the foremost of the feathered race ; or that the last 

 of the mollusca are more perfect than the first of the annelides 

 or the zoophytes," &c. &c. And it is notorious, that the tor- 

 toises, the lizards, the frogs, and, indeed, almost all the tetra- 

 pod reptiles, are as nearly allied (if not more so) to the quadru- 

 pedous beasts, e. g., theornithorhynchus, the armadillo, &c. &c, 

 as are the birds, which, in all ordinary arrangements, separate 

 them so widely ; and again, the pinnipeds, especially the 

 whales, are, in many respects, more analogous to fish than to 

 birds : and yet how distant are they placed in the linear scales 1 



