1 62 A HISTORY OF 



pst of the animal, or the highest of the vegetable race. The sensitive 

 plant, that moves at the touch, seems to have as much perception as 

 the fresh-water polypus, that is possessed of a still slower share of 

 motion. Besides, the sensitive plant will not reproduce, upon cutting 

 in pieces, which the polypus is known to do ; so that the vegetable 

 production seems to have the superiority. But, notwithstanding this, 

 the polypus hunts for its food, as most other animals do. It changes 

 its situation, and therefore possesses a power of choosing its food, or 

 retreating from danger. Still, therefore, the animal kingdom is far 

 removed above the vegetable ; and its lowest denizen is possessed oi 

 very great privileges, when compared with the plants with which it is 

 often surrounded. 



However, both classes have many resemblances, by which they are 

 raised above the unorganized and inert masses of nature. Minerals 

 are mere inactive, insensible bodies, entirely motionless of themselves, 

 and waiting some external force to alter their forms, or their proper- 

 ties. But it is otherwise with animals and vegetables ; these are en- 

 dued with life and vigour ; they have their state of improvement and 

 decay ; they are capable of reproducing their kinds ; they grow from 

 seeds in some, and from cuttings in others ; they seem all possessed 

 of sensation, in a greater or less degree ; they both have their enmi- 

 ties and affections ; and as some animals are, by nature, impelled to 

 violence, so some plants are found to exterminate all others, and make 

 a wilderness of the places round them. As the lion makes a desert 

 of the forest where it resides, thus no other plant will grow under the 

 shade of the manchinel-tree. Thus, also, that plant in the West-In- 

 dies, called caraguata, clings round whatever tree it happens to ap- 

 proach : there it quickly gains the ascendant ; and loading the tree 

 with a verdure not its own, keeps away that nourishment designed to 

 feed the trunk ; and at last entirely destroys its supporter. As all 

 animals are ultimately supported upon vegetables, so vegetables are 

 greatly propagated, by being made a part of animal food. Birds dis- 

 tribute the seeds wherever they fly, and quadrupeds prune them into 

 greater luxuriance. By these means the quantity of fopd, in a state of 

 nature, is kept equal to the number of the consumers ; and, lest some 

 of the weaker ranks of animals should find nothing for their support, 

 but ah the provisions be devoured by the strong, different vegetables 

 are appropriated to different appetites. If, transgressing this rule, the 

 stronger ranks should invade the rights of the weak, and, breaking 

 through all regard to appetite, should make an indiscriminate use of 

 every vegetable, nature then punishes the transgression, and poison 

 marks the crime as capital. 



If, again, we compare vegetables and animals, with respect to the 

 places whore they are found, we shall find them bearing a still stronger 

 similitude. The vegetables that grow in a dry and sunny soil, are 

 strong and vigorous, though not luxuriant ; so also are the animals of 

 such a climate. Those, on the contrary, that are the joint product of 

 heat and moisture are luxuriant and tender ; and the animals assimi- 

 lating to the vegetable food, on which they ultimately subsist, are 

 much larger in such places than in others. Thus, in the internal parts 

 of South America, and Africa, where the sun ussally scorches nil 



