14 



Living bodies spring from a germ, which at first, was part of another 

 being, from which it detaches itself, for the sake of its own developement 

 and growth. From the first, they are already aggregates. Inorganic 

 bodies have no germ : they are made up of distinct parts brought toge- 

 ther; they have no birth, but a multitude of molecules, collecting into 

 one, compose masses of various bulk and figure. 



Organized bodies alone can die; all have a duration, determined by 

 their own nature ; and this duration is not like that of minerals, propor- 

 tioned' to the bulk and density : for if man has not the life of the oak, 

 whose substance much exceeds his in density, neither does he equal the 

 life of many animals, such as fishes, whose flesh is of inferior consist- 

 ence to his own: and he lives longer than the large quadrupeds, though 

 his bulk is less. 



Finally, inorganic are essentially distinguished from organic bodies, by 



the want of these peculiar powers or properties of living nature: powers, 



'Which uphold the. equilibrium of the whole system of nature, as I shall 



explain more at large, when I have considered the differences that mark 



i the two divisions of the organic kingdom, vegetables and animals. 



IV. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN VEGETABLES AND ANI- 

 MALS. 



These are much fewer, less absolute, and therefore more difficult to es- 

 tablish. There is. in fact, very little difference between a zoophyte, and 

 a plant, and there is a much wider difference in their internal oaconomy, 

 between man, who stands at the height of the animal scale, and the poly- 

 pus on its lowest line, than between the polypus and a plant. There lies 

 between organized and inorganic bodies, a space, which isnot to be filled 

 up by figured stones, nor by lithophytes, nor by crystals, in which some 

 naturalists have thought they saw a beginning of organization. Whilst, 

 at the extremity of the animal chain, are found beings, fixed, like plants, 

 on the spot of their birth, sensitive and contractile, like the sensitive and 

 some other plants, and reproduced like them from slips. Yet we are 

 able to state some differences, sufficiently marked, to assign to the ve- 

 getable kind a character of their own, which will not suit the individuals 

 of either of the other kingdoms. 



Their nature, more complex than that of minerals, is Jess so than that 

 of animals: the proportion of the solids to the liquids, is greater than in 

 these last : accordingly they retain, long after death, their form and bulk, 

 only that they grow lighter. The solids are, in man, nearly a sixth of 

 the whole body : his carcase, remains decomposed by putrefaction, a lit- 

 tle earth, arid a light skeleton, when the ground and the air have drawn 

 from it all its juices. A tree, on the contrary, is more than three parts 

 of its substance, solid wood. It has been dead for ages, and yet in our 

 buildings, it preserves its form and size, though by drying it has lost a 

 little of its weight. 



Their constituent principles, as they are less in number, are also less 

 diffusable. In fact, azote, which is predominant in animal substances, is a 

 gaseous and volatile principle, whilst carbon, the base of vegetable 

 substance, is fixed and solid. This circumstance, added to the smaller 

 quantity of their liquids, explains the long duration after death, of ve- 

 getable substances. 



