126 THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



more and more till it arrives at a perfect vegetable, and the 

 other branch is developed till it arrives at a perfect animal. 

 Thus, by the addition of distinctive and characteristic 

 appendages, one being acquires properties regarded as 

 vegetable, while by the addition of other appendages equally 

 characteristic, the other being obtains those properties which 

 cause it to rank as an animal ; but it must not be inferred 

 from this that all organic forms have been a simple cell at 

 some former period, but that there are two classes of organic 

 beings, the vegetable and the animal, and that each embraces 

 forms, ranging from a simple cell to the highest, and that 

 each of these forms (from the lowest to the highest) is and 

 always was, from their first creation, the same as they now 

 are, in individual shape and size. Some of the lower 

 members of the animal kingdom resemble the higher 

 members of the vegetable kingdom, both in outward appear- 

 ance and in intimate structure ; Dr. Darwin, who wrote 

 scarce half-a-century ago, says that a tree should no more be 

 considered as one plant than a branch of coral as one 

 animal, for as it is found that in the coral hundreds of 

 separate beings exist associated in one habitation, so (he 

 says) should every bud on a tree be considered as a 

 separate being. Even Dr. Carpenter, one of our most 

 eminent physiologists, seems in a great measure to favour 

 this idea. He says : " The radiata possess many points of 

 affinity with the vegetable kingdom, and of these the circular 

 arrangement of their parts is one of the most evident. 

 Many species of sea-anemones, for instance, present an 

 appearance so much resembling that of various composite 

 flowers, as to have been commonly termed animal-flowers, 

 a designation to which they seem further entitled from the 

 small amount of sensibility they manifest, and the evident 

 influence of light upon their opening and closing. 



" But it is in the tendency to the production of compound 

 fabrics, each containing a number of individuals, which 

 have the power of existing independently, but which are to 

 a certain degree connected with one another, that we 

 recognise the greatest affinity in structure between this 

 group and the vegetable kingdom. Every tree is made up of 



