CHARACTER OF ANIMAL LIFE. 331 



is when a river runs ; when a bird flies, there is a 

 natural cause for it, as well as there is when the 

 wind flies ; and when an animal swims, there is a 

 natural cause for it as certainly as there is when a 

 bubble swims on the current of a river ; but as we 

 cannot get at the knowledge of that cause, or at 

 least of part of it, there is a mysterious sort of ori- 

 ginality about k he action itself, which engages our 

 attention much more than if we could resolve the 

 whole into material elements. 



This more complicated nature of the animal than 

 even the vegetable removes it at least one degree 

 further from mere inorganic matter, and makes it 

 more completely dependent upon organization. 

 Consequently, we cannot so vary animals by culture 

 as we can vary plants, although we can educate 

 them for more active purposes than any that can be 

 answered by plants. 



As those who have paid even moderate attention 

 to the subject can always distinguish the remains 

 of plants, when dissolved but not chymically de- 

 composed, from dissolved inorganic matter, so it is 

 just as easy to distinguish animal matter when dis- 

 solved, but not decomposed, from vegetable matter 

 in the same state. The plant, if we except the parts 

 which are soon evaporated by the atmosphere or 

 washed away by the waters, is found to consist of 

 carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, that is, of charcoal 

 and the elements of water. That matter may be 

 reduced to powder or to paste, but still we can easily 

 distinguish, not merely by chymical examination, 

 but by the touch and the smell ; the last of these, 

 though not very strong, is peculiarly refreshing, so 

 that it is very healthful to walk over a field of good 

 land after it has been turned up by ploughing. 



Chymical decomposition, at least in the softer 

 parts, very speedily follows animal dissolution ; so 

 that, when an animal substance has been long in the 

 earth, it is not easily detected, except in the bones 



