210 



character, and the least equivocal character of their 

 tinimplity. 



Thus it appears that the loco-mo tivt faculty is not 

 more proper for distinguishing the vegetable from the 

 animal, than those other characters which we have be- 

 fore treated of. Iii the mean time, what can be more 

 distinct in appearance than a plant is from an animal ] 

 Or what more easy to characterise in the sight of the 

 major part of mankind ? But when once we are con- 

 vinced that every thing in nature is shadowed over, we 

 are not surprised at the difficulties we meet with in our 

 attempts to distinguish beings. We expect to see the 

 species enter again into each other ; and confine our- 

 selves to the smallest latitude, or to that which is attended 

 with the Least uncertainty. In this principle we will con- 

 clude the parallel : Jet us see whether feeling, and the 

 manner by which animals and vegetables are nourished, 

 will furnish us with any thing more characteristical. 



26. If there be any faculty which seems peculiar to the 

 animal, it is certainly that of feeling. Being united to 

 an organized substance by ties which perhaps are known 

 to GOD only, this soul composes with this substance a 

 mixed being, a being which partakes of the nature of 

 bodies, and of that of spirits. As a portion of matter, 

 it is a machine which is admirable in its structure, and 

 on which corporeal objects afct mechanically. As a spi- 

 ritual substance, it is affected at the presence of spiritual 

 objects in a manner which does not seem to have tiny re- 

 lation with that by which material substances act on each 

 other. From the expression of external objects on the 

 machine, there results a certain motion in the machine 

 Fiom this motion there follows a certain sensation in the 

 soul, which is succeeded by the reaction of the spiritual 

 substance on the corporeal ; a reaction which manifests 

 feeling from without, and which is the expression or 

 sign of it. 



The various sensations in the animal may be reduced 



