ANIMALS AND VEGETABLES. 15 



table kingdoms, not only from the manner of 

 their reprodudion, but ftill more from their fi- 

 gure ; yet there is no danger of miflaking the 

 one for the other. The operations of fome ani- 

 mals refemble plants or flowers. But plants n^- 

 ver produce any thing fimilar to an animal; and 

 thofe wonderful infedts which make corals,, 

 would never have been miflaken for flowers, if, 

 by a foolifh prejudice, coral had not been re- 

 garded as a plant. Thus the errors we may 

 commit in comparing plants and animals, are 

 confined to a few objects w^hich lie on the ex- 

 tremities of the two kingdoms; and the farther 

 we extend ourobfcrvations, wefhall be the more 

 convinced, that the Creator has inftituted no 

 fixed limits between the animal and vegetable ; 

 that thefe two fpecles of organized beings pof- 

 fcfs a greater number of common properties 

 than of real differences ; that the production of 

 an animal requires, perhaps, a fmaller exertion 

 of Nature than the produdionof a vegetable ; or 

 rather, that the production of organized bodies 

 requires no immediate exertion at all ; and, 

 lallly, that animation, or the principle of life, 

 infl:ead of a metaphyfical flep in the fcale of be- 

 ing, is a phyfical property common to all 



matter, 



CHAPTER 



