DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN ANIMALS AND VEGETABLES. 17 



no growth from internal deposition; they increase, if at all, by par- 

 ticles deposited without ; there is no power of reproducing them- 

 selves, or repairing lost parts, no excretion, no assimilation. The 

 constant round of actions witnessed in the living organized structure, 

 and which is called life^ in them is wanting. The affinities of their 

 component elements being satisfied, all remains at rest. Change is 

 the exception; rest, the law. Whilst in organized bodies, rest is the 

 exception, change the law. 



DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN ANIMALS AND VEGETABLES. 



Under the head of organized bodies are included both animals and 

 vegetables ; and it is therefore desirable to point out some of the charac- 

 teristic differences between these two kingdoms. Development, growth, 

 excitability, propagation and decay are the general phenomena and 

 properties of all organized bodies, and are the results of organization ; 

 but there are other properties peculiar to animals, which may there- 

 fore be termed animal^ in contra-distinction to the general organic 

 properties; these are sensation and voluntary motion. Plants, it is 

 true, are not entirely destitute of motion ; their organization is 

 attended with internal motions, such as. the circulation of the sap; 

 moreover, they turn spontaneously to the light ; their roots seek the 

 most nutritious soil, and some even perform evident movements 

 which seem to be spontaneous, as if they indicated sensibility. 

 Such movements are seen in the sensitive plant and in the Venus' 

 fly-trap. These, however, are strictly organic and result from 

 physical changes produced directly in the part impressed. Plants 

 are irritable but not sensible. Irritability must not be confounded 

 with sensibility. Plants cannot be said to possess sensibility unless 

 they manifest consciousness. 



The presence of a stomach is another characteristic of animals. 

 This may be a mere result, however, of the nature of their food. 

 Vegetables obtaining their food in a liquid or gaseous form, do not 

 require a cavity for its reception. The only instance in which such 

 an organ may be supposed to exist is in the case of the pitcher-plant, 

 in which the leaves are so arranged as to form cavities for the reten- 

 tion and solution of the bodies of insects ; the dissolved food is then 

 absorbed into the plant. 



Animals, on the contrary, cannot live on inorganic materials, they 

 can only employ them as food after they have been united into cer- 

 tain peculiar organic compounds. Now, as they cannot incorporate 

 any alimentary substances into their oWn tissues until they have 

 been reduced into a fluid form, they require a cavity, the stomach, 

 to effect this reduction. 



Another difference is observed in the manner in which the first 

 development of the germ takes place. The first nisus of animal de- 



2* 



