226 A COMPARISON OF ANIMALS. 



sides, 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 re- 

 treating from danger. Still, therefore, the animal kingdom 

 is far removed above the vegetable ; and its lowest deni- 

 zen is possessed of 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 properties. But 

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

 dued with life and vigor, they have their state of improve- 

 ment 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 enmities 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 a lion 

 makes a desert of the forests where it resides, thus no 

 other plant will grow under the shade of the manchineel- 

 tree. Thus, also, that plant in the West Indies 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, en- 

 tirely 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 

 distribute the seeds wherever they fly, and quadrupeds 

 prune them into greater luxuriance. By these means the 



