370 SYSTEM OF INSECTS. 
Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal; but strictly speaking 
the 'primary division is into organized and inorganized 
natter; the former resolving itself into the two king- 
doms last mentioned. These, like England and Scot- 
land of old, have their " Land Ucbatcable ;" occupied 
by those Productions moyenncs, (to use a term of Bon- 
net's a ,) which are as it were partly animal and partly 
vegetable. From this territory common to both, the two 
kingdoms are extended in a nearly parallel direction till 
they reach their extreme limits, without any incursion 
from either side upon their mutual boundaries, but each 
showing its kindred with the other by certain resem- 
blances observable between opposite points ; so that valley 
corresponds with valley, mountain with mountain, river 
with river, sea with sea b ; not, however, so as to form an 
exact counterpart, but only in some general features. 
But to leave metaphor ; — as the vegetable kingdom is 
distinguished from the mineral by its organization and 
life, by its circulation of sap, and by its powers of repro- 
duction by seed or otherwise ; so is the animal from the 
vegetable by its powers of volition and locomotion c , by 
its nervous systems and organs of sensation, and the 
senses to which they minister, by its muscular irritability, 
and by its instinctive endowments. 
Having made these observations with regard to the pri- 
mary division of natural objects in general, — what I have 
further to say will be confined to the animal kingdom, 
and ultimately to the branch of which we are treating. 
a CEuvr. vii. 52. b .V. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. ii. 34—. 
' Even those animals that like the Spongicu and Alcyonia are ag- 
gregate, and fixed by a common base, have a partial degree of vo- 
luntary locomotion in their cells. 
