DIVISION OF NATURAL OBJECTS. O 
CHAP. I. 
ON THE DIVISION OF NATURAL OBJECTS, AND THE PECU- 
LIAR CHARACTERS OF INORGANIC BODIES, 
Tu objects which present themselves to the notice of 
the Natural Historian, on the surface of this globe, exhibit 
innumerable varieties of form, structure, action and posi- 
tion. But, however diversified in appearance, they readily 
admit of distribution into various groups, each including 
numerous species, capable of farther arrangement into sub- 
ordinate tribes. ‘The most extensive of these groups, are 
two in number,—the one called the OrcanizEp,—the 
other the INorcanic Kingdom. The limits which sepa- 
rate these two divisions, are so well defined, that the dis- 
tinction has been universally received. 
Philosophers and poets, in all ages, have been anxious 
to point out a certain gradation of perfection in earthly 
objects,—a CHAIN OF BEING, the links of which consist 
of all created beings, passing by insensible degrees from 
the simplest to the most complicated, and constituting 
one harmonious whole, unbroken and dependent. Crys- 
tallization, they say, is the highest link of the inani- 
mate part of the chain, and connects the Mineral with the 
Vegetable Kingdom. The lichen which encrusts the stone, 
is but one step higher in the scale of being than the stone 
itself. The mushrooms and corals, form a bond of union 
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