370 SYSTEM OF INSECTS. 



Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal ; but strictly speaking 

 the primary division is into organized and inorganized 

 matter ; the former resolving itself into the two king- 

 doms last mentioned. These, like England and Scot- 

 land of old, have their " Land Debateable ;" occupied 

 by those Productions moyennes, (to use a term of Bon- 

 net's 1 ,) which are as it were partly animal and partly 

 vegetable. From this territory common to both, the two 

 kingdoms are extended in a nearly parallel direction till 

 they reach their extreme limits, without any incursion 

 from either side upon their mutual boundaries, but each 

 showing its kindred with the other by certain resem- 

 blances observable between opposite points ; so that valley 

 corresponds with valley, mountain with mountain, river 

 with river, sea with sea b ; not, however, so as to form an 

 exact counterpart, but only in some general features. 

 But to leave metaphor ; as the vegetable kingdom is 

 distinguished from the mineral by its organization and 

 life, by its circulation of sap, and by its powers of repro- 

 duction by seed or otherwise ; so is the animal from the 

 vegetable by its powers of volition and locomotion , by 

 its nervous systems and organs of sensation, and the 

 senses to which they minister, by its muscular irritability, 

 and by its instinctive endowments. 



Having made these observations with regard to the pri- 

 mary division of natural objects in general, what I have 

 further to say will be confined to the animal kingdom, 

 and ultimately to the branch of which we are treating. 



a CEuvr. vii. 52. b N. Diet, d'Hist. Nat. \\. 34. 



" Even those animals that like the Spongite and Alcyonia are ag- 

 gregate, and fixed by a common base, have a partial degree of vo- 

 luntary locomotion in their cells. 



