ON ZOOLOGY. Ill 



or a will to act for themselves, to grow and die 

 where nature first had placed them. 



Animals, on the contrary, having progressively 

 bestowed on them higher places in the scale of 

 providence, necessarily required a more compre- 

 hensive field of action, and consequently a capa- 

 bility of movement, and a peculiarity of structure, 

 for which, vegetables, in their more limited sphere, 

 could have no possible use. 



Thus in the place of being confined to the 

 same spot under one uniform routine of move- 

 ments, where cause and effect meet with no inter- 

 ruption as in vegetables, we find animals in most 

 instances ranging at large from place to place ac- 

 cording to the impulse of the moment ; selecting 

 their food as their taste or appetite shall suggest ; 

 suffering at one time all the deprivations and con- 

 sequences to which a scanty supply may expose 

 them; at another, indulging to the fullest extent 

 of their wants. We see them capable, through 

 the operation of their senses, of discriminating 

 between those substances which are salutary to 

 their constitutions, and those which are injurious; 

 of ascertaining the approach of their enemies, 

 and by their locomotive powers of flying from, or 

 by their offensive weapons repelling their attacks. 

 Through the same sources, with some few excep- 

 tions, they are open to those excitements that 

 are productive of pain and pleasure in all their 

 possible varieties to the depressing passion of 



