“172 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY., 
of plants and flowers. It is in the investigation of 
these beings, that some acquaintance with compara- 
tive anatomy is essential. Having now sufficiently 
discussed the relative value apparently belonging 
to different parts of the structwre of an animal, 
little need be said on its composition. This, in fact, 
is the province of the chemist, whose business it is 
to analyse, not the form, but the elements of which 
that form is composed. Such considerations, no less 
than those belonging to internal structure, are 
essential to the full and complete knowledge of an 
organised being; but, whenever such a being can 
be defined with sufficient accuracy by more simple 
means, a redundancy of knowledge and a compli- 
cation of characters are clearly to be avoided. 
(115.) 2. Let us now pass to the second head of 
our subject: viz., the properties of an animal. It 
is evident, to an attentive observer, that the innu- 
merable beings composing the animal creation are 
destined to perform different offices therein; and 
that they are not only endowed with forms adapted 
to such offices, but with instincts for carrying them 
into effect. Our attention is naturally directed, in 
the first instance, to their forms, because they may 
be understood and recognised long before we be- 
come acquainted with the designs for which such 
forms were created. ‘The properties, therefore, of 
an animal consist, first, in its habits or instincts ; 
and secondly, in the mode in which the. qualities 
contribute to the general economy of nature. 
(116.) The economy of nature,—shat is to say, 
the harmonious adjustment of all created things,—is 
preserved by the efforts of all, instinctively directed, 
