CHAPTER VI 

 THE LIVING WORLD 



WE have now, in our study of elementary science, 

 to make a great step in advance. The objects 

 which have next to occupy our attention, like those 

 which have previously occupied it, conform, as a matter 

 of course, to the laws of number and of mechanics, and 

 serve as vehicles for the physical forces herein before 

 noticed. But the objects we have now to consider also 

 possess additional powers powers of which the whole 

 non-living world is entirely destitute. Every one knows 

 that plants grow and multiply, and that animals not 

 only grow and multiply, but have their feelings also. 

 Our dog can plainly hear and see us, and has his sensa- 

 tion of pleasure and of pain, as well as his emotions of 

 hope and joy, of fear and grief, But so highly organ- 

 ised an animal cannot serve to set forth the subject of 

 this chapter. For by " the living world," the whole mass 

 of creatures, from the humblest green thread of conferva, 

 or most microscopic fungus, to the gigantic gum-tree 

 and the far-spreading banyan ; and from the hardly per- 

 ceptible animalcule to the humming-bird, the condor, the 

 tiger, the whale, the monkey and man. 



To study so enormous a mass of forms with any com- 

 pleteness is beyond the power of any single human 

 being. 



It is therefore absolutely impossible in this chapter to 



