40 bEFINITION OF A PLANT. [LECT. II. 



not appear, at first sight, to be less easy. But he 

 who investigates the subject more closely finds 

 unlooked-for obstacles, arising from the unbroken 

 chain of connexion which seems to unite these 

 two classes of beings ; and is forced to acknow- 

 ledge the impossibility of fixing upon that link of 

 it, which marks the termination of the animal, 

 and the commencement of the vegetable state of 

 existence. That a perfect animal can be easily 

 distinguished from the more perfect productions of 

 the vegetable creation is undoubtedly true ; as no 

 one could hesitate, for an instant, in which of the 

 kingdoms of Nature to place a dog or a rose ; but 

 the difficulty arises when the strikingly character- 

 istic functions of each kind of life are, as it were, 

 confounded. Thus, not many years since, natu- 

 ralists were undetermined whether to consider 

 corals and corallines, polypi, and other zoophytes, 

 as vegetable or animal beings. The difficulty of 

 fixing upon the proper limits of these two king- 

 doms of Nature, and the circumstance of the 

 members of both being living organized bodies, 

 and thus differing decidedly from fossils, have in- 

 duced the moderns to propose the division of na- 

 tural objects into two classes only, INORGANIC and 

 ORGANIC: the first comprehending all those bodies 

 which submit to the general laws of chemical 

 attraction and affinity and of mechanics ; and 

 which do not possess life, as, gases, fluids, earths, 



