GREAT STEPS IN EVOLUTION 79 



this is a surviving error of the alchemists, 

 continued by the early encyclopaedists of 

 nature, but broken down by Linnaeus, who 

 clearly discerned that there are only two : 

 the living and the non-living, the truly organ- 

 ized and the merely aggregated. Hence in 

 his immortal " System of Nature " he unites 

 Animalia and Vegetabilia as Organisata, and 

 separates Mineralia as Conserta. True, he 

 falls somewhat from this again, witness his 

 famous, but very fallacious, aphorism 

 "Minerals grow; Plants grow and live; 

 Animals grow, live and feel " ; yet the great 

 distinction of life is not lost sight of. 



Since Claude Bernard, more than a genera- 

 tion ago, wrote his famous book, " Phe'no- 

 m&nes de la vie communs aux animaux et 

 aux ve'ge'taux," it has been recognized that 

 the beech-tree feeds and grows, digests and 

 breathes, as really as does the squirrel on its 

 branches; that in regard to none of the main 

 functions (except excretion, which plants have 

 little of) is there any essential difference; and 

 that plants, though for the most part, as 

 it were, asleep, give many striking illustra- 

 tions of their power of movement and their 

 irritability. 



We must remember also that plants and 

 animals are alike in fundamental architecture, 



