20 



man does no more. The plant, \ve see, was not created 

 to feel at all, why then should we insist that the worm 

 or insect is full of sensibility ? Is it because worms are 

 animals! but who made this ariificial division into animal 

 and vegetable life? " II n'y a aucune difference essentielle 

 entre les animaux et les vegetaux." * " Animals and vege- 

 tables are, in the eye of Nature, existences of a very similar 

 order." Now, none doubting that the vegetable kingdom 

 is absolutely impassive, and the transition from vegetable 

 into animal life absolutely eluding observation, it becomes 

 impossible to refuse the admission that some animals at 

 least, may be void of sensibility and we act upon this per- 

 suasion. The oyster is eaten while his heart palpitates, 

 without qualm or scruple ; the Neapolitan batters down 

 the quivering spines of the echinus, and lacerates him 

 alive ! 



To such however as may still think it becoming to insist 

 that the Creator must needs have willed to impart the ad- 

 vantage of the senses to the whole of His animal creation, 

 the question may perhaps be addressed without offence, 

 whether to have endowed those humble creatures, which 

 VQ so unavoidably crush in myriads at every step we take, 

 with an impassive body, might not in reality be that very 

 dispensation of tenderness for which they contend ? 



In addition to so many general arguments which I have 

 now endeavoured to stale, against the probability of much 

 sensibility in insects, arguments I think fairly dedueible 

 from the consideration of what they are in structure, and 

 of what sensation is it may yet perhaps be by no means 

 void of interest to scrutinise their pretension to each of 

 the senses categorically ; the question of the possession of 

 any one of them, however, so resting upon the same gene- 

 ral grounds, that while, if you can prove anyone of them to 

 exist, the existence of any other becomes possible ; so, if 



* Biiffon. 



