HISTORY OF BOTANY. 305 



favoured by Alexander, of whom he had been the preceptor. 

 That conqueror, in the midst of pride and the fury of passion, 

 still possessed the love of true glory, and a desire that his 

 conquests might serve to promote the improvement of the 

 human mind ; he allowed to Aristotle, in the prosecution of 

 his scientific investigations, every facility that wealth and 

 power could bestow. 



Aristotle beiieved, that in nature there was a regular pro- 

 gress, from inorganized matter upwards to man, and from man 

 upwards to the Deity ; that beings were connected together by 

 certain affinities, composing an immense chain, of which the 

 links were all connected. Thompson seems to have had this 

 idea in his mind when he wrote thus : 



" And lives the man whose universal eye 



Has swept at once the unbounded scheme of things ? 



Has any seen 



The mighty chain of beings, lessening down 

 From infinite perfection to the brink 

 Of dreary nothing, desolate abyss !" 



This idea of a regular chain of beings, presenting itself 

 with such grandeur and simplicity, has had many admirers ; 

 but facts do not always seem to correspond with this theory. 

 In the vegetable kingdom we should find it impossible to trace 

 a regular gradation from the oak to a moss (if we were to 

 make these the extremes of the chain of vegetable substances), 

 and say exactly in what part of the scale each family of plants 

 should be placed ; it would rather seem in many cases, as if 

 the links of the chain had been broken or disunited. 



Aristotle considered plants as intermediate between inor- 

 ganized matter and animals. Plants, he said, are not distin- 

 guished from animals in being destitute of the seat of life, the 

 heart ; because of this, the reptiles and inferior order of ani- 

 mals are also destitute. Plants have no consciousness of them- 

 selves, or organs of sense to know what is out of themselves ; 

 animals possess these faculties, therefore Aristotle says they 

 are different. We think it would have been difficult for him 

 to have discovered any evidence of consciousness in the sponge, 

 or any marks by which it might appear that this animal sub- 

 stance (for such it is thought to be), has any knowledge of any 

 thing external to itself. However great may be the venera- 

 tion entertained for the opinions of Arislotle, we believe his 

 distinction between plants and animals will at this time find no 

 supporters. This philosopher published his works on natural 

 history about 384 years before Christ. 

 . Theophrastus, the friend and pupil of Aristotle, published a 



Theophrastus. 



26* 



