NATURAL HISTORY. 



SSS 



through the pits each night and 

 morning, which was formerly done. 

 In short, every thing is most won- 

 derfully contrived to save labour 

 and expence 



On the similarity betiveen the physio- 

 logy of plants and animals ; from 



SuUvan's View of Nature, 



i^e. 



OF the essence and properties of 

 life we are personally ignorant. 

 What life really is, seems too subtile 

 for our understandings to conceive, 

 or our senses to discern. All ani- 

 mals are endowed with sensation, or 

 at least with irritability, which last 

 has been considered as a distinguish- 

 ing character of animal existence. 

 We acknowledge sensation in orsja- 

 nized bodies, when we perceive 

 they have organs similar to our own, 

 or when they act, in certain circum- 

 stances, iu the same manner as we 

 act. If an organized being have 

 eyes, ears, a mouth, we naturally 

 conclude it enjoys the same sensa- 

 tions, as these organs convey to us. 

 If we see another being, whose 

 structure exhibits nothing analogous 

 to our organs of sensation, vet con- 

 tracting with rapidity when touched, 

 directing its body uniformly to the 

 light, seizing sjnall insects with ten- 

 lacula, or a kind of armn, aud con- 

 veying them to an aperture placed 

 at its anterior end, we hesitate not 

 to pronounce it to be animated. 

 Cut off its arms, deprive it of the 

 faculty of contracting and ext<,-nd- 

 ing its body, the nature of this be- 

 ing will not be changed; but we 

 shall be unable to determine \vl»ether 

 it possesses any portion ol life. This 

 is nearly the condition of the small 

 sections of a polypus, before their 



heads begin to gi-ow. The wheel- 

 animal, the eels in bhghted wheat, 

 and the snails recorded in the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions, afford in- 

 stances of every appearances of sen- 

 sation, and even of irritability, being 

 suspended, not for months, but for 

 several years, while yet the life of 

 these animals is not extinguished, 

 for they uniformly revive upon a 

 proper application of heat and of 

 moisture. If, then, we have no 

 other criteria to distinguish hfe, than 

 motion, sensation, and irritabihty, 

 the animals just mentioned, conti- 

 nuing in a state for years, which 

 every man would pronounce to be 

 perfectly dead, Hfe may probably 

 exist in many bodies which are com- 

 monly thought to be as inanimate 

 as stones. 



Wherever there is a vascular sys- 

 tem, containing a moving nutritive 

 succus, there is life ; and wherever 

 there is life, there may be, for aught 

 we can prove to the contrary, a more 

 or less acute perception. The same 

 kind of comparative reasoning, that 

 would exclude vegetables from the 

 faculty of perception, might equally 

 exclude from animahty, those ani- 

 mals which are provided with the 

 most obtuse senses, when compared 

 with such as are furnished with the 

 most numerous, and most acute. 

 The perception of man seems to 

 be infinitely greater, when com- 

 pared with that of coralines, sea- 

 pens, and oysters, than the percep- 

 tion of these, which are allowed to 

 be animals, when compared with 

 the signs of perception manisfested 

 by a variety of what are called ve- 

 getable. Should I not rather call 

 one of the blooming, gentle, and af- 

 fectionate daughters of humanity, 

 the sister of the lily of the valley, or 

 of the rose, than of tl»e muscle or 



of 



