62 LIFE AND OKGANISATIOK 



and zeal of modern enquiry. The first of these topics has 

 been already partially noticed ; viz., the relation to each other 

 of these two great natural provinces, each so profusely peopled, 

 and each exhibiting such wonderful design and exuberant 

 variety of the creative power. This question has of late been 

 closely examined by naturalists. It involves the fact, in 

 itself one of great interest, that in the lowest and simplest 

 forms both of animal and vegetable life, there is so close a 

 coalescence of the two, as well in structure as in mode of 

 developement, that it is often difficult to say to which the 

 individual belongs. Even the acute microscope of Ehrenberg 

 put down as Polygastric Infusoria what are now discovered 

 to be germs of vegetable life. We are brought here, in fact, 

 to that doctrine of our own time, that the simple cell is the 

 primitive germ of all living organisation, even of that which 

 in its end attains the highest grade of animal existence. On 

 this subject we shall have to speak hereafter. Meanwhile, 

 looking simply at the two great kingdoms of life, as they 

 diverge from this initial point by a gradual scale of ascent 

 to higher states of each, the special question arises ; What 

 are the peculiar physical conditions which separate and 

 severally distinguish them ? Of the answers to this question 

 all may be said to converge more or less towards one point ; 

 viz., the fact, well established, that while vegetable life is 

 created and supported from unorganised or disorganised 

 'matter, animal life always requires for its nutriment matter 

 already organised either by its own or vegetable processes. 

 It cannot, so to speak, work the raw material into its own 

 texture. Even the mere animal jelly, floating in water 

 without obvious organisation, is nourished by absorption of 

 vegetable sporules, or animal matters so comminuted as to 

 serve to this end. A more special distinction, but equally 

 explicit, has been drawn from the chemical action of plants 

 on the atmosphere. Expressing it in the words of Professor 



