DR. ERASMUS DARWIN. 57 



the Nous apart, are all physical; then there are his 

 ijemTrmles (not really dissimilar from thos"e of Mr. 

 Darwin) ; and there is also his botany. It is this last 

 that we have more specially in mind at present. We 

 have at least authority in a certain way Aristotelian for 

 this, that Anaxagoras attributed respiration and life to 

 plants ; that he held that they were sensitive, that they 

 experienced both joy and grief, and that they were moved 

 by desire ; and even that he maintained of them that 

 they possessed thought and knowledge. The same 

 authority adds to the name of Anaxagoras those of 

 Empedocles and Democritus. These and other ancients, 

 Parmenides, Diogenes, seem really to have entertained, 

 in almost all these respects, very much the same 

 opinions ; as, that the earth was the mother, and the sun 

 the father, of both plant and animal, nay of Man. 

 Democritus, among them, was no more than the common 

 brother. 



In his views, then, however extreme, if in regard to 

 plants only, Erasmus has not only his grandson to 

 support him, but (to say nothing of the modern Fechner 

 and his Nanna) even quite a baud of the ancients. All 

 of these ancients, nevertheless, let them be as materialistic 

 as they may on the whole, do still, like Erasmus, dis- 

 countenance Charles in his denial of design and intellect 

 as independent, actually existent, constituents of this 

 universe. Even Democritus cannot be certainly said 

 not to have united with his materialism the recognition 

 of a spiritual element as well (see Zeller). As for 

 Erasmus, we already know, and may see again, how 

 very much of a theist and teleologist he was. 



The second volume of Zoonomia being principally 

 professional, it is there, perhaps, that we shall meet the 

 greatest display of that crude physical picture-think- 

 ing which ha*s been characterised as common to most 



