128 



ANIMAL. 



the former of any thing like those central organ* 

 found in the latter, which, from the interior of 

 the body, and generally from the mesial plane, 

 send off radii of communication to every atom 

 of the organization, and prove the media that 

 unite their several and often widely separated 

 parts into a whole. We discover nothing like 

 prolongations from central organs from a heart, 

 an artery, a stomach, and a spinal cord or 

 ganglionic system, among vegetables. Hence the 

 independence of the several parts of vegetables 

 one upon another, hence their susceptibility of 

 being multiplied by cuttings, and even of some 

 species arising complete from their leaves. 



A third and very important peculiarity in 

 regard to the mode in which the vital processes 

 are performed in the animal and vegetable 

 kingdom is that many take place with con- 

 sciousness or knowledge of their occurrence, in 

 the one, whilst they all occur unconsciously in 

 the other. In vegetables the whole of the 

 acts whose sum constitutes their vitality are 

 perfectly irresistible, and take place in them 

 without their knowledge, and uninfluenced by 

 their will. A great many of the vital acts, in- 

 deed, take place without consciousness among 

 animals also, such as the circulation of the 

 blood, the digestion and assimilation of the 

 food, Sec., but the moment the animal passes 

 the sphere of its individual existence, whenever 

 it has to act beyond itself, we find conscious- 

 ness of the action superadded to the capacity to 

 act. The very lowest animals select their food, 

 search for and appropriate their aliment as it 

 presents itself to them ; the most perfect vege- 

 table, on the contrary, absorbs irresistibly-, and 

 without perception or will, the materials brought 

 into contact with its roots in the earth, and its 

 leaves in the air. The same wide differences 

 are apparent in the act by which the species 

 is continued : animals search for, and, by an 

 inherent virtue denominated instinct, implying 

 consciousness, distinguish the other individual 

 of opposite sex, of which they have need in 

 order to procreate their kind ; in vegetables, 

 on the contrary, all is passive ; the pollen or 

 fecundating powder is projected or falls upon 

 the pistillum, or is even left to be brought into 

 contact with this part by accident, without 

 participation in the act, without consciousness 

 of or will in its performance. 



These two last named manifestations, the 

 one subservient to the preservation of the in- 

 dividual, the other to the continuance of the spe- 

 cies, are accompanied with such circumstances 

 in animals as presuppose in them other two 

 peculiar faculties : these are perception and the 

 power of locomotion. To preserve themselves 

 as individuals and as species, they required 

 powers which should make them acquainted with 

 and enable them to establish relations between 

 their own bodies and the world beyond them. 

 By the faculty of perception, which may be 

 taken as synonymous with sensibility in its 

 widest acceptation, an animal is made aware 

 of his individual existence, as well as of that 

 of the material universe without him. This 

 faculty also takes cognizance of all the internal 

 sentiments, feelings, or desires of which by his 



constitution he i.s susceptible, and which are 

 always in harmony with the part he is destined 

 to play in creation. Sensibility may therefore 

 be defined : the faculty by which impressions 

 from without as well as sensations, emotions, 

 and intellectual acts from v\ithin are perceived. 

 The organ of this faculty is by universal con- 

 sent admitted to be the nervous system. The 

 faculty itself, as the above definition indicates, 

 is susceptible of being considered under two 

 heads : as the impressions perceived or percep- 

 tions come from without, or as they emanate 

 from within. The organs of the senses are the 

 media through which external impressions reach 

 the percipient principle which resides in the 

 brain and medulla oblongata in the higher 

 animals, the nervous ganglia in the lower, and 

 these same parts are the instruments or e labo- 

 ratories of the internal sensations. Both of 

 these kinds or modes of perception were alike 

 necessary to the beings endowed with them. 

 The external sensations are the watchmen of 

 the system, admonishing animals of the pre- 

 sence of the objects they require for their pre- 

 servation ; the internal feelings, in like manner, 

 are centinels which admonish them of their 

 wants and lead to the employment of the organs 

 by which these may be supplied. 



By the faculty of locomotion, again, an animal 

 accomplishes all the promptings of his inward 

 nature ; he places himself in relation with 

 the beings and the things which he is ad- 

 monished by his instincts or internal faculties 

 are necessary to him for his preservation as 

 individual and continuance as species. Made 

 aware of his wants by perception, by the 

 faculty of locomotion he is enabled to minis- 

 ter to them. These two powers, let us ob- 

 serve, always exist together; the one, indeed, 

 necessarily supposes the other. Sensibility or 

 perception is the monitor, locomotion the agent. 

 Without perception locomotion could have sub- 

 served no end ; without some capacity of loco- 

 motion perception would have been a vain in- 

 heritance. 



Vegetables evidently possess no power of 

 locomotion analogous to that inherent among 

 the higher animals, where the seed falls there 

 the plant springs, there it attains maturity, and 

 there it dies. Neither do they manifest any 

 thing like sensibility in outward act that can 

 be ascribed to volition or consciousness : their 

 nature, in fact, made perception unnecessary to 

 them; and having no power of locomotion, it 

 would have been useless in the two great acts 

 by which organized beings minister to their pre- 

 servation as individuals and to their existence 

 as species. Still it is impossible to deny every 

 thing like capacity of outward motion to vege- 

 tables. Although they have no power of trans- 

 porting themselves over the surface of the earth 

 or through its waters like animals, many of 

 them exhibit motions in their leaves and flowers 

 in relation with the state of the atmosphere, 

 and the diurnal revolution of the earth ; the 

 sexual organs in several species move the one 

 towards the other; and about the foot-stalks 

 and petioles of the mimosa pudica and other 

 plants we observe particular organs that con- 



