THE DEPARTMENTS OF THE STUDY. 



13 



the completeness of its being. A tulip is composed of organs which 

 may be separated and subdivided indefinitely, but no one of the frag- 

 ments alone will be a complete plant. 



33. ANIMALS, like plants, are organized bodies endowed with vitality, 

 and composed of distinct parts, no one of which is complete in itself, but 

 they are elevated above either plants or minerals by their power of per- 

 ception. 



34. THESE DISTINCTIONS, long since suggested by Linnseus, the founder of botani- 

 cal science, are perfectly obvious and definite in the higher grades of the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms. But in descending the scale, we recognize a gradual approach, 

 in both, to inorganic matter, and consequently to each other, so that in the lowest 

 forms of life all traces of organization are lost to our perception, and the three 

 kingdoms of nature, like 



converging radii, apparent- 

 ly meet and blend in a com- 

 mon centre. 



35. THE POSITION OF THE 



PLANT-WORLD IN RANK and 



office is intermediate. While 

 inferior to the animal in re- 

 spect to perception and in- 

 stinct, it is superior to the 

 mineral in its vitality. In 

 office it constitutes the food 

 and nourishment of the ani- 

 mal, the vesture and orna- 

 ment of the mineral world, 

 whence alone itself is fed. 

 In other words, plants feed 

 on minerals, animals feed 



on plants. 



FIGURE 1. A diagram illustrating these views of the three 



36. PHYSICS is the kingdoms of nature how related to each other. 



general name of the science which treats of the mineral or inorganic 

 world. 



37. ZOOLOGY relates to the animal kingdom. 



38. BOTANY is the science of the vegetable kingdom. It includes 

 the knowledge of the forms, organs, structure, growth, and uses of 

 plants, together with their history and classification. Its several de- 

 partments correspond to the various subjects to which they relate. Thus 



39. STRUCTURAL BOTANY, or Organography, treats of the special or- 

 gans of plants as compared with each other, answering to Comparative 

 Anatomy in the science of Zoology. Morphology is a term often used 

 in a similar sense ; but it especially relates to the mutual or typical 

 transformations which the organs undergo in the course of development. 



40. ELEMENTARY BOTANY treats of the elementary tissues the or- 

 ganic elements out of which the vegetable fabric is constructed. 



