LAWS AND VITAL PRINCIPLES. 29 



number and acuteness as animals advance in the scale of organized 

 beings, some having two, some three and some four, etc. The power 

 of locomotion, it will be seen, cannot be urged as a distinction in favor 

 of animal life ; for, being attached to rocks or floating without volun- 

 tary motion, they are no more locomotive than plants. Nor can the 

 presence of nitrogen, which by some has been considered a proof of 

 anirnality, be deemed conclusive, since it is found also in plants. The 

 fact is that individuals of both kingdoms approach one another so 

 nearly in some particulars that no line of distinction can be drawn. 

 The idea lhat because the elementary principles of plants and animals 

 differ in the fact that plants possess more carbon than animals and 

 animals more nitrogen, there is a notable distinction between them, 

 appears too much like an effort to discover differences without a rea- 

 son. The only differences, then, that appear marked, are in the facts 

 that plants feed on inorganic matter and animals on organic matter, 

 and that they throw off oxygen and inhale carbonic acid, while animals 

 throw off carbonic acid and inhale oxygen. The fact that life is more 

 limited in plants than animals and that they consequently manifest 

 less of the powers or properties of irritability, will readily be seen and 

 acknowledged. 



Laws and Vital Principles. 



Inorganic matter is the medium through which organic matter de- 

 rives its oganization and vitality. This matter in its ordinary state, 

 neither undergoing the processes of organization or of decomposition, 

 belongs especially to the mineral kingdom. From this, then, the vegeta- 

 ble kingdom mainly derives its powers ; and from the vegetable kingdom 

 is derived those of the animal kingdom. It is only when animal and 

 vegetable substances have been deprived of vitality, and are no longer 

 subject to the laws of organic matter, but have become, by death, sub- 

 ject to the laws of inorganic matter, that vegetables are in part support- 

 ed by them. But animals are supported by organic matter, or that 

 which has had vitality, and before the laws of inorganic matter have ope- 

 rated upon it. It will be perceived that inorganic matter, or that of 

 the mineral kingdom, possesses the same properties when divided or 

 ground to powder that it does in the mass ; i. e. each particle possesses 

 those properties in proportion to its size ; while the organic parts of 

 animals or of vegetables, if thus crushed or divided, are deprived by 

 death of the vital forces which distinguished them from inorganic 

 matter. 



The seed of a plant, if placed in the earth, forms a living plant, 

 which, from its incipiency, opposes inorganic laws, or those of decom- 

 position. The vital principle which it has received from the seed and 

 which the seed having parted with, together with a portion of its sub- 

 s' 



