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CHAPTER III. 



ON THE DISTINCTION OF AN ANIMAL FROM 

 A VEGETABLE. 



It requh-es but little observation to see that organized 

 matter is of two different sorts, animal and vegetable — 

 but it is by no means equally easy to state in what the 

 difference between them consists. — " Rien ne semble," 

 says Cuvier, " si aist a definir que V animal: tout le monde 

 le concoit comme un etre doue du sentiment et de moutie- 

 ment volontaire; mais lorsqu'il s'agit de diterminer si 

 un etre qu'on observe est ou non un animal, cette defi- 

 nition se trouve souvent tres difficile a appliquer." The 

 line of demarcation which has been allowed to be in- 

 distinct even between the mineral kingdom and orga- 

 nized matter, is then said by one of the first Zoologists 

 to be at least equally so when we attempt to distin- 

 guish the animal from the vegetable ; and Lamarck ob- 

 serves, that hitherto it has been found impossible to make- 

 this distinction without interfering with truths already 

 established, and without contesting principles which are 

 universally considered as axioms. Indeed, it is a certain 

 fact, that no naturalist as yet has proposed characters 

 which can be considered either as truly applicable to all 

 known animals, or of so precise a nature as to distin- 

 guish them clearly from vegetables. The reason assigned 

 for this has been, that anatomists hitherto have confined- 



