8 A MANUAL 



ti'iist if lie is getting weary of long words he will 

 skip tlie rest of this chapter for the present, and 

 return to it when he has finished chapter the 

 second. 



Let us "begin at the beginning," and as one of 

 our friends has asserted that a sea-anemone is a 

 sea-weed, i. e. a vegetable, we shall convict him, in 

 the first place, of an unintentional error. 



All objects which exist on the earth's surface, and 

 whose existence our senses enable us to perceive 

 and recognise, are divided into two great groups, 

 which we call respectivel}^ Organic and Inorganic 

 bodies. 



Now, what we mean when we say that we divide 

 any given number of objects into two or more 

 groups, classes, &c., is simply this, that some par- 

 ticular character or resemblance is peculiar to all 

 the objects under each division respectively, which 

 is not shared by the objects included under the 

 other division — as, e.g. if we divide all men into 

 good and bad, we merely intend to say that certain 

 moral qualities belong to all the individuals of the 

 former class which are not to be found in any 

 individuals existing in the latter — thus, then, 

 the peculiar character of all inorganic bodies 

 (viz. minerals, whose atoms have no organization, 

 — that is, do not work together with the ob- 

 ject of gathering nourishment from surrounding 

 matter for the bodies of which they form a 



