VI 



ON THE BORDER TERRITORY BETWEEN 

 THE ANIMAL AND THE VEGETABLE 

 KINGDOMS 



[1876] 



IN the whole history of science there is nothing 

 more remarkable than the rapidity of the growth 

 of biological knowledge within the last half- 

 century, and the extent of the modification which 

 has thereby been effected in some of the funda- 

 mental conceptions of the naturalist. 



In the second edition of the " Regne Animal," 

 published in 1828, Cuvier devotes a special section 

 to the " Division of Organised Beings into Animals 

 and Vegetables," in which the question is treated 

 with that comprehensiveness of knowledge and 

 clear critical judgment which characterise his 

 writings, and justify us in regarding them as re- 

 presentative expressions of the most extensive, 

 if not the profoundest, knowledge of his time. 

 He tells us that living beings have been sub- 



