46 ON THE STUDY OP 



curiosity very far beyond what 1 the vegetable 

 world (however wonderful in itself) is calculated 

 to produce ; we see the vital principle called into 

 action upon the most comprehensive scale, giving 

 energy and effect to an immense variety of 

 operations, simple and compound, to answer 

 the diversified purposes for which this most 

 interesting portion of nature was created. 



Thus, with the common laws of vitality pecu- 

 liar to vegetables, animals possess the power of 

 locomotion, or moving from place to place to an 

 indefinite degree and the will to produce it. 

 They can see, hear, feel, smell, taste, know their 

 own species, and form their attachments and 

 dislikes ; see the approach of danger, and know 

 how to avoid it; are capable of enjoyment, and 

 are tenacious of the life by which all these ac- 

 tions are produced. 



All these may be considered properties com- 

 mon to most animals, and of themselves afford a 

 noble field for the physiologist, as well as for the 

 man of taste, or of more ordinary inquiry. 



But when we examine the intellectual powers 

 of different animals, the sagacity of the one, 

 and the contrivance of the other ; when we in- 

 vestigate the laws by which each class in all its 

 varieties, from the most diminutive to those of the 

 greatest magnitude, is regulated ; and the dif- 

 ferent movements and effects to which those laws 

 give rise, to answer their own particular pur- 



