112 On the Cosmogony of Moses. 



and perverse on my part, but of putting words in his mouth 

 which he never uttered. 1 must endeavour to get out of this 

 scrape as well as I can, though I fear it will he at the lisk, which 

 I am loth to incur, of rufRing still further the serenity of my 

 adversary's temper. 



He challenges me to produce a passage from anv of his let- 

 ters, in which he has affirmed, either directly or by inference, 

 that corals are locomotive animals. As I have no chance of 

 finding a thing so ridiculous asserted toiidcm verbis, 1 shall con- 

 tent myself with collecting it by inference, or rather from syno- 

 nymous expressions. But first 1 beg to remark, that I never 

 supposed F. E s to be so beside himself as seriously to main- 

 tain such an absurdity; and I should not have condescended to 

 notice a verbal error, however extraordinary, if he had not first 

 introduced that captious method of carrying on the controversy 

 between us. 



In a paper which was published in May (rhilosojdiical Maga- 

 zine, xlvii. p. 348), F. E s has asserted that zoophytes 



are moving creatures thai have life'^. These words, in the rela- 

 tion in which they occur, must convey to \\\e mind of every 

 reader precisely the same idea as locomotive animals. I have 

 never heard that any motions have been proved to belong to 

 zoophytes different from the motions of mere irritability, which 

 are common to this class of beings and to plants, and which 

 therefore cannot be thought to be alluded to as characterizing 

 any department of aniuiated nature. The phrase in the text, 

 " moving creatures that have life," being clearly intended to 

 distinguish animals, it would be mere quibbling, to assign it a 

 sense which is equally applicable to animals and vegetables. I 



cannot then be censured for not suspecting F. E s of such a 



trick or play upon words, as imputing to this expression a mean- 

 ing that will apply to sensitive plants, and more or less to every 

 vegetable tribe. If however this was the sense in which he af- 

 firmed zoophytes to be moving creatures that have life, I was 

 mistaken in saying that he called them locomotive. I was not 

 aware that he was playing upon v/ords, and therefore misappre- 

 hended his meaning. 



But F. E s affirms that he had precluded any misappre- 

 hension of his words by a restrictive clause. He says he had 

 acknowledged that the motion of zoophytes " does not precisely 

 accord with the idea (of locomotion) v.hich Dr. Prichard thinks 



* Lamarck, to whom F. E s appeals in his last letter, as to a high 



authority, excludes zoophytes from all share even in sensibility, and terms 

 lliem apathic animals. The propriety of this term may be questioned, but 

 the opinion which Ic-u to ics adoption seems to be founded on very strong 

 facts. 



the 





