16 SENTIENT PRINCIPLE. 



SENTIENT PRINCIPLE, 



ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF THE FOUR GRAND 

 DIVISIONS OF ANIMALS. 



I. RADIATED ANIMALS. 



The sentient principle in this division of ani 

 mals, is scarcely manifest. Many of them being 

 fixed like a plant, and scarcely exhibiting any 

 signs of irritability, are hardly distinguished from 

 plants, or even from minerals. If they are sen- 

 sible to pleasure or to pain, few of them have the 

 means of making their sensations known to man. 



IL MOLLUSCOUS ANIMALS. 



The nervous and circulatory systems being 

 more complicated, we infer, from analogy, that 

 this division of animals possesses the sentient 

 principle in greater perfection. But such is their 

 clumsy structure, that they are incapable of evin- 

 cing their superiority to the radiated divisions, if 

 they are really superior. Some species of snail 

 have considerable locomotive power ; and exhibit 

 signs of fear, and retreat suddenly from danger. 

 {Borne species of the bivalves change situation as 

 their wants seem to dictate. Little, however, can 

 be said of the sagacity of this division of animals, 



III. ARTICULATED ANIMALS. 



Though the nervous and circulatory systems are 

 less perfect in this than in the last division of an- 

 imals, their forms being better adapted to the ex- 

 hibition of their pleasures, pains, and wants, they 



