XII. 



THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ANIMALS AND PLANTS.* 



No classes of natural objects seem to the 

 general apprehension more distinct and im- 

 miscible than animals and plants. The free 

 moving intelligent animal appears immeas- 

 urably removed from the fixed insentient 

 plant. 



Yet, underlying this seeming distinctness, 

 there usually lurks some vague feeling of 

 analogy between the hidden springs of life in 

 the two classes of beings. Strange flights of 

 the imagination have imposed themselves 

 upon belief in all ages, that are hard to ac- 

 count for unless we take this general feeling 

 of a unity, or possibility of transference be- 



*A paper read before the joint session of the sections of 

 botany and zoology of the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, at the Springfield meeting, September 2, 

 1895, and printed in the American A"atura/ist, November, 1895; 

 somewhat revised and extended. 



