Vegetable Pathology: 399 



those qualities and attributes of animals, resulting from brain 

 or mind, would be and are to them totally impotent. The 

 faculties of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling (un- 

 less where such feeling depends upon mechanism), and which 

 convey to animals all those powers which influence them, 

 would be, even if vegetables had them, perfectly useless. 

 They have no medullary substance to receive them ; and 

 therefore they would have the same effect on them as they 

 have on man or beast whose brains are affected by disease, 

 inebriation, or violence. They have indeed some qualities 

 which appear to partake of sensation, such as spontaneous 

 motion to the light or to an upright position ; shrinking from 

 the touch, as in the sensitive plant, or closing their petals on 

 the fly, like the Dionse v « muscipula: but these actions are 

 the result of a mechanical process, quite distinct from volun- 

 tary action; and resemble the instinct of animals given them 

 for their preservation and defence. The vegetable and the 

 animal, in those cases where the mind or brain is uninfluenced, 

 are wonderfully governed by similar laws, are obnoxious to 

 similar evils, influenced by similar causes, and display similar 

 effects. 



Life. — The first and most essential bond of union and re- 

 semblance between the animal and vegetable world is the 

 vital principle, called life. In what that principle consists, 

 where situated, and whence derived, have hitherto eluded 

 the researches of all. That it is distinct from the soul and. 

 mind is clear, because it is as necessary to the vegetable, 

 which has neither, as it is to man, who is endued with both. 

 Jt lies equally dormant in the egg of the bird, as in the germ 

 of the vegetable, and, till called into action at a certain stage 

 in the progress of their respective formations, the embryo lies 

 apparently without it: but, as soon as it is roused from its; 

 inactivity, it accompanies each during their infancy, maturity, 

 and decay ; and when old age or accidental causes have com- 

 pleted the term of their existence, it equally resigns the body 

 to the well-known consequences of dissolution. In animals, 

 as well as vegetables, there are some mortal parts which, if 

 wounded, hasten its termination,, or render them feeble and 

 sickly ; and there are others which bear the effects of injury 

 without being materially affected. The same terms, expres- 

 sive of life and death, health and disease, vigour and weakness, 

 are applied to both ; and, when their qualities render them fit 

 for food, they both supply to man his necessaries or his 

 luxuries. 



Structure and Functions. — The next affinity between the ani- 

 mal and vegetable world is in their structure nwdfunctions. The 



