Oiap. XVIL A NT IE NT METAPHYSICS. 219 



And here we have difcovered a mind different from any of the mo- 

 tive powers of bodv above mentioned ; for thefe move only one hodj 

 in a certain determined diredti^n : Whereas the vital principle in the 

 vegetable governs a fyPtem or ivhole ; for luch und mbtedly the vege- 

 tabie, as well as the animal, is. Now, where there is a ivhole, there 

 muft be fome principle of union ; for it is not fuffi lent that there 

 fliould be feveral principles operating feparately, but there muft be 

 one which fuperiniends the whole, direding and adjufting, as in this 

 cafe, the feveral parts of the organic body of the vegetable, in fuch a 

 manner, as to make them all confpire to the growth, nutrition, and 

 propagation of the plant *> But we are not to fuppofe that this genius 

 of the tree, this Dryad or Hamadryad, as the Poets call it, has intelli- 

 gence, confcioufnels of what it does, or any knowledge of the end tor 

 which it ads, but, like the principle of motion in matter inanimate, 

 ads merely as the inferior minifter of that Superior intelkd which 

 prefides over the univerfe. 



This is the difference betwixt the ^vegetable and body unorganized ; 

 and I am now to explain the differenc^^ betwixt the animal and the 

 'vegetable : And in it is to be obferved, that the animal contains in it 

 two diftind natures ; one of the vegetable kind, by which it is nou- 

 rifhed, grows, and propagates its kind, as the vegetable docs. The 

 mechanic ftrudure of this part of the animal is much more various, 

 complex, and artificial, than that of the vegetable. But the vital prin- 

 ciple which directs and luperincends this part of the animal oeconomy, 



xL e 2 ]g 



* Cudworth, in his Intelleaual Syftem, p. 164. exprefles this in the followin<T 

 words: ' For the leveral parts of matter, diftant one from another, aQing alone by 



* thcmfelves, without any common direarix, bting not able to confer together, nor 



* communicate with each other, could never polRbly confpire to make up one fuch 



* uniform and orderly fyftem or compages as the body of every a/z/mo/is'— and he 

 might have added, * the vegetable,* 



