\ ene 
7s 
30 PASSAGES FROM POPULAR LECTURES. 
scale of capabilities. We say that plants are higher than minerals, 
because they have more varied and more complex capacities, they can do 
more. And, forthe same reason, we say that animals are higher than plants. 
A mineral, such as a piece of iron, has a definite form, a definite 
colour, it will conduct heat and electricity in definite degrees, and it 
will attract oxygen if it comes near it in the presence of water. But a 
plant has nearly all the capacities of a mineral, and many more | 
besides. It feeds, and breathes, and grows, and reproduces its kind, and 
has a multitude of internal motions and operations going on among - 
its tissues. It does an immense number of things which the piece of iron 
cannot do. The difference between them is wider than the difference 
between a watch and a stone, but it is something of the same kind. 
But, if the plant is higher in the scale of being than the mineral, 
it is a great deal lower than the animal. A dog not only feeds, and 
breathes, and grows, and reproduces its kind, but can move about 
from place to place rapidly and easily ; and has a voice, and eyestosee | 
with, and ears to take in sound, and a brain in which ideas and 
passions are developed. A plant has none of these capacities. 
When we look at the whole material contents of this world, we 
find that there is one marked and striking difference which divides 
them into two great classes—the organic and the inorganic. In the 
first of these divisions every object has a variety of parts, differing from a 
each other, and each part has certain definite work to do in connection 
with a common purpose. We call these parts organs. In a dog there are 
legs for running, a nose for smelling, teeth for eating, and a tail to wag, 
In a tree there are roots to suck up moisture, a stem to support the 
boughs, boughs to carry the leaves, leaves to spread out the sap in the 
sunshine, flowers to produce seed. But in a piece of iron there are no 
organs. It is amass of grains or fibres, all alike, and each doing the 
same work. Soisa stone, sois water, soisthe air. All these together 
we call the inorganic world; animals and vegetables make up the . 
organic world. Life is said also to be a special characteristic of creatures 
which have definite organs. It may be so; but it is not quite proved that 
life is entirely absent from inorganic objects. In crystallisation we have 
a phenomenon in which some of the elementary characters of life make 
their appearance, and in which organic differentiation of parts seems to 
be foreshadowed. Who shall say whether the vegetative force, which 
builds an oak out of an acorn, is not of the same nature as that which 
builds a ‘silver tree” out of a chemical solution ? 
MIDLAND ENTOMOLOGY: ENQUIRIES AND 
SUGGESTIONS. 
BY, W.° G. BLATCH. 
Is any progress being made in the study of Entomology in the 
Midland Counties? Are Entomologists really “few and far between ” in 
central England; or are they, like many of their favourite insects, too 
unobtrusive in their habits? Can anything be done to develop and foster 
Entomological tastes in our local Societies? 
