HUNTERIAN LECTURES. 



1852. 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 



CHARACTERS A>T) CLASSIFICATION OF ANIMALS. 



In entering upon a description of the Animal Kingdom, the natu- 

 ralist's first and greatest difficulty is to determine its bounds. The 

 same difficulty meets the anatomist, and must meet whoever under- 

 takes to write on any particular quality of animals in general. 



LiNN^us, the great framer of precise and definite ideas of natural 

 objects and terse teacher of the briefest and clearest expressions 

 of their differences and diagnoses, divided them into three kingdoms, 

 and characterised them as follows : — 



" Lapides, corpora congesta, nee viva, nee sentientia. 

 " Vegetarilia corpora organisata et viva, non sentientia. 

 " Animalia, corpora organisata et viva et sentientia, sponteque 

 se moventia." * 



In other words — minerals are unorganised ; vegetables are or- 

 ganised and live ; animals are organised, live, feel, and move 

 spontaneously. 



By organisation is meant such an internal cellular or ceUulo-vas- 

 cular structure as relates to the reception of fluid matter with the 

 power of altering that matter and adding it to the alterative structure, 

 the fluid being on that account called "nutritive," and the actions it 

 is subjected to, " assimilation" and "intussusception." As these acts 



♦ L torn. i. p. 11. 



B 



