120 



ANIMAL. 



every part of the same individual, are no less 

 strongly marked and inherent features. So- 

 lidity or hardness may be looked upon as the 

 term of perfection of a mineral ; softness, on 

 the other hand, often appears to be the term of 

 perfection among vegetables and animals, the 

 parts in these being generally softer in proportion 

 as they have more important or noble offices to 

 perform. The tender fibrils of the root, the 

 leaves, flowers, stamina and pistilla in plants ; 

 the brain, vessels, viscera, &c. in animals, are 

 softer than the bark and woody fibre, than the 

 bones, ligaments, skin, &c. which form, as 

 it were, but the frame and covering of the 

 proper fabric. This quality also varies in the 

 organic world according to the age of the in- 

 dividual : the nearer any organized being is to 

 its birth or origin, the softer will it generally be 

 found to be ; the longer it has lived, the harder 

 will it as uniformly be ascertained to have 

 become. Many organized beings, indeed, in 

 the first stages of their existence, are wholly 

 fluid; they only acquire consistence as they 

 are evolved and approach maturity. 



It is almost needless to speak of the ex- 

 tent to which inorganic bodies differ from or- 

 ganic in these respects; they are rigid and 

 hard in all their parts alike, and never vary in 

 consistence from the moment of their forma- 

 tion to that of their disintegration or decom- 

 position. 



The elementary particles or molecules en- 

 tering into the composition of organized and 

 unorganized objects, also differ in their essen- 

 tial nature. All organized beings, in fact, 

 whether their solids or fluids are regarded, 

 appear to be made up of or to contain glo- 

 bular or oval and sometimes flattened cor- 

 puscles. The simplest plants, the confervae, 

 tremellae, &c., and the simplest animals, the 

 infusoria, polypi, &c., are alike composed of 

 globules and a fluid ; nor is the case different 

 as regards the most complicated vegetable or 

 animal that exists. The elementary globule 

 has now been discovered in almost all the 

 solids and fluids both of vegetable and of 

 animal bodies, in the sap and cambium or 

 succus proprius of vegetables, and in the 

 blood, chyle, milk, and other fluids of animals ; 

 in the fecula, albumen, parenchyma of the 

 leaves, cells of the flowers, &c. of plants, and 

 in the cellular membrane, muscle, brain, nerve, 

 gland, &c. of animals. 



Nothing of the same kind has yet been de- 

 tected among inorganic bodies. Angular par- 

 ticles separable to infinity into others of a like 

 description are the elements of composition in 

 minerals. 



Globules, then, are to be regarded as the 

 elementary constituents of organized bodies, 

 as the ultimate molecules possessing a distinct 

 form, which by their aggregation compose them. 

 The first step, indeed, in the singular pro- 

 cess by which infusory animals are eliminated 

 during the decomposition of organized sub- 

 stances, is the formation of globular corpuscles; 

 these, by their subsequent aggregation in some 

 cases and individual evolution in others, 



appear to give birth to the organized atoms 

 that by-and-by make their appearance ; and, 

 as we have said, globules are now admitted to 

 form the basis of the different tissues which 

 enter into the composition of the very highest 

 among animals. These various tissues, in fact, 

 would seem to result from the different modes 

 in which the elementary globules are disposed ; 

 and it is not improbable that the difference 

 of function they exhibit may yet be found in 

 harmony with, and perhaps depending on, pe- 

 culiarity of arrangement in their constituent 

 molecules. 



This aggregation of the organic molecules 

 into a variety of tissues and peculiar organs 

 forms another essential feature of difference 

 between the organized and the unorganized 

 world. Minerals, indeed, as they manifest no 

 variety of phenomena analogous to those of 

 life, required no diversity of elementary con- 

 stitution in their different parts ; they are con- 

 sequently homogeneous. In minerals the com- 

 ponent molecules are arranged in layers placed 

 one upon another, so that their crystals can be 

 readily cleft in a variety of directions, according 

 to the elementary arrangement of these. In 

 vegetables and animals, on the other hand, the 

 constituent molecules always form tissues, the 

 fibres of which interlace or cross one another ; 

 in no living or organic thing do we observe 

 aught similar to what is called the cleavage in 

 minerals. 



From this it comes that minerals are as com- 

 plete in their parts as they are in their masses : 

 the minutest spark of carbonate of lime has all 

 the properties of a crystal of this substance, 

 were it as large as a mountain. The case is 

 very different in regard to organized beings ; 

 these consist of a number of organs, the sum 

 of whose actions constitutes the peculiar vitality 

 of each being, and no individual part or organ 

 enjoys capacity to manifest itself abstractedly 

 from the system to which it belongs. All the 

 parts of organized bodies are mutually en- 

 chained by bonds of the strictest causality; 

 this even follows necessarily from the manner 

 in which they originate and are evolved. The 

 radicle that bursts from the fecundated seed 

 of a plant determines the growth of the stem, 

 which subsequently and in its turn plays the 

 same part with reference to the leaves and 

 flowers, the parts that appear first are the 

 cause of the appearance of those that follow 

 at later stages. No relation of this kind exists 

 among inorganic bodies. When a crystal is 

 formed in the midst of a fluid, the particles 

 composing it unite, in conformity with the mere 

 laws of cohesion and affinity, not in consequence 

 of any determining influence in the particles 

 which cohered the first, each stage or period 

 of the process of crystallization is independent 

 of that which preceded it. Whilst the parts 

 of an inorganic body, therefore, can exist with 

 all their qualities, as well in a state of disin- 

 tegration as in one of aggregation, the com- 

 ponent parts of organic bodies can only exist 

 with their distinguishing properties when united 

 to the entire being. Individuality in the or- 



