1875.] and the Lower Animals. 67 
of the ammonia of commerce is derived from the destructive 
distillation of a vegetal matter,—namely, coal. Next cer- 
tain substances were pronounced exclusively peculiar to the 
vegetable world—such as starch, alkaloids like quinine, and 
colours like indigo. One by one these, or their representa- 
tives, have been traced in the animal world. As a last 
resource the advocates of a chemical distin¢tion selected 
protagon—a substance found in the nerves of animals. But 
alas ! even this compound has been distinétly recognised in 
the grain of Indian corn. Again, it was asserted that plants 
were entirely dependent in temperature upon the surrounding 
medium, whilst animals, to a greater or less extent, possess 
a temperature of theirown. ‘This view is also abandoned. 
Several flowers are distinctly and measurably warmer than 
the surrounding atmosphere. Thus, according to Garreau, 
the flower of Arum cordifolium has been found to have the 
temperature of 121° F., whilst that of the air was merely 
66 F. Onthe other hand, the milk of a freshly-gathered 
cocoa-nut is several degrees colder than the atmosphere. 
There are, of course, certain anatomical features upon 
which those who worship their own ignorance—under the 
imposing title of ‘‘ common sense ’—may rely as furnishing 
a criterion. Bones and nerves cannot be distinguished in 
plants; but neither can they be traced in all forms of 
animal life. Thus the old antithetical distinction between 
plant and animal becomes less tenable, less striking, the 
more closely it is examined. 
So we might proceed with a large majority of the con- 
trasted couples, either of science or of common life. We 
should find, almost invariably, that where a dualistic ar- 
rangement has been adopted, that it is either radically false 
in principle, that the two classes are not mutually exclusive, 
or that the presumed antagonistic groups are merely the 
extreme members of one connected series. We should find 
more and more evidence that Nature repudiates our pigeon- 
boxes, and that her groups are referrible not to any outside 
boundary or definition, but to an internal type. 
But whilst Science is successively repudiating these anti- 
thetical couples of the past, and regarding them as mere 
“‘alms for oblivion,’ one case of dualism remains almost 
untouched. We still speak of ‘‘ man and beast” as did our 
forefathers in the eleventh century. Man deems himself, 
not the first and highest member of a series—or group of 
series—including ail furms of animal life, but a creature 
removed from them far more widely than is the ape from the 
coral-worm. He differs from them, according to his own 
