CONNECTION WITH ANIMAL KINGDOM. 125 



occupies in creation, there can be no doubt that it is sub- 

 ordinate to the animal kingdom, and takes a place between 

 it and the mineral world, inasmuch as it prepares food from 

 the one kingdom and transfers it to the higher. It has been 

 supposed that the vegetable and animal kingdoms aid and 

 support each other equally and mutually ; this is true with 

 respect to respiration, but not as regards nutrition, for 

 although in the decomposition of animal matters, food is 

 given off for the vegetable, yet they are quite independent 

 of this source of nourishment. A forest of trees would be 

 quite as well nourished if there were no animals, but on the 

 other hand the animal kingdom would shortly cease to exist 

 if there were no vegetables. 



It was formerly supposed that the lowest grades of the 

 animal kingdom were higher than the highest of the vegetable 

 kingdom ; this is not ' strictly true, the best way of viewing 

 the connection between the two kingdoms is to approximate 

 the lowest of each, when it will be found that our most 

 acute physiologists are only just beginning to determine 

 their distinctive characters. 



Dr. Carpenter says : " In the present state of science it 

 would be very difficult, and is perhaps impossible, to lay 

 down any definite line of demarcation between the two 

 kingdoms, since there is no single character by which the 

 animal or vegetable nature of any organism can be tested. 



"Probably the one which is most generally applicable, 

 among those lowest organisms which most closely approxi- 

 mate to one another, is not, as formerly supposed, the 

 presence or absence of spontaneous motion, but the depend- 

 ence of the being for nourishment upon organic compounds 

 already formed, which it takes (in some way or other) into 

 the interior of its body, or its possession of the power of 

 obtaining its own alimentary matter by absorption from the 

 inorganic elements on its exterior. The former is the 

 characteristic of the animal kingdom as a whole, the latter 

 is the attribute of the vegetable." 



Both vegetables and animals begin with a simple nucleated 

 cell, having certain vital properties, a double chain ascends 

 from this simple type, one branch of which is developed 



