XI PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 321 



the plant world, I should find that it originated in 

 an acorn, which, too, commenced in a cell; the 

 acorn is placed in the ground, and it very speedily 

 begins to absorb the inorganic matters I have 

 named, adds enormously to its bulk, and we can 

 see it, year after year, extending itself upward 

 and downward, attracting and appropriating to 

 itself inorganic materials, which it vivifies, and 

 eventually, as it ripens, gives off its own proper 

 acorns, which again run the same course. But I 

 need not multiply examples, from the highest to 

 the lowest the essential features of life are the 

 same as I have described in each of these cases. 



So much, then, for these particular features of 

 the organic world, which you can understand and 

 comprehend, so long as you confine yourself to one 

 sort of living being, and study that only. 



But, as you know, horses are not the only living 

 creatures in the world ; and again, horses, like all 

 other animals, have certain limits are confined 

 to a certain area on the surface of the earth on 

 which we live, and, as that is the simpler matter, 

 I may take that first. In its wild state, and before 

 the discovery of America, when the natural state 

 of things was interfered with by the Spaniards, the 

 horse was only to be found in parts of the earth 

 which are known to geographers as the Old 

 World ; that is to say, you might meet with 

 horses in Europe, Asia, or Africa ; but there were 

 none in Australia, and there were none whatsoever 



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