A COMPARISON OF ANIMALS 

 WITH THE INFERIOR RANKS OF CREATION. 



ANIMALS are endowed with powers of motion and de- 

 fence. The greatest part are capable, by changing 

 place, of commanding nature ; and of thus obliging her 

 to furnish that nourishment which is most agreeable to 

 their state. Those few that are fixed to one spot, even in 

 this seemingly helpless situation, are, nevertheless., pro- 

 tected from external injury by a hard shelly covering, 

 which they often can close at pleasure, and thus defend 

 themselves from every assault. And here, I think, we may 

 draw the line between the animal and vegetable kingdoms. 

 Every animal, by some means or other, finds protection 

 from injury; either from its force, or courage, its swiftness, 

 or cunning. Some are protected by hiding in convenient 

 places ; and others by taking refuge in a hard resisting 

 shell. But vegetables are totally unprotected; they are 

 exposed to every assailant, and patiently submissive in 

 every attack. In a word, an animal is an organized being, 

 that is in some measure provided for its own security ; a 

 vegetable is destitute of every protection. 



But though it is very easy, without the help of definitions, 

 to distinguish a plant from an animal, yet both possess 

 many properties so much alike, that the two kingdoms, as 

 they are called, seem mixed with each other. Hence, it 

 frequently puzzles the naturalist to tell exactly where ani- 

 mal life begins, and vegetative terminates; nor, indeed, is 

 it easy to resolve, whether some objects offered to view be 

 of the lowest of the animal, or the highest of the vegetable 

 races. 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. Be- 



