LECTURE VIII. 225 



gone the way of all flesh. But recently two Frenchmen^ 

 GeoflFroy St. Hilaire and Quatrefages^ have attempted to deter- 

 mine the position of manj not according to the peculiarities of 

 his organisation, but according to qualities external to the 

 physical organism. I shall offer some observations on this 

 subject after quoting the remarks of the respective authors. 

 Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire says : " Sensation and motion alone 

 constitute the animal ; and all efforts to render the definition 

 more perfect, by adding other characteristics, only render it 

 less philosophical and correct. The characters, derived from 

 the structure of the animal, at once distinguished from others 

 derived from its qualities, are neither essential nor constant, 

 and can by no means rank with the attributes of sensation 

 and spontaneous motion. 



" It is in this way that the chief objection to the esta- 

 blishment of a human kingdom is removed. Let us abandon 

 to the subdivisions of natural history those structural charac- 

 ters by which every being is distinguished. The true know- 

 ledge of the great divisions of nature, of provinces and 

 kingdoms, lies in a different sphere. The animal is distin- 

 guished from the plant by peculiar faculties, which are oblite- 

 rated where animality ceases, and it is by virtue of these only 

 that it belongs to a separate kingdom. Even so is man 

 separated from the animal kingdom by his incomparably higher 

 qualities and capacities, — by the intellectual and moral facul- 

 ties, which are added to sensation and motion ; and it is by 

 these that he constitutes the highest division in nature, — the 

 human empire, above the animal kingdom. 



" The plant," continues GeojSroy, " lives, — the animal lives 

 and feels ; man lives, feels, and thinks." In another passage 

 the distinctive character of man is said to consist in " intelli- 

 gence ;" in other sentences, again, it is said, " Moral hfe is, in 

 the human kingdom, added to vegetative and animal life ;" 

 and again, " there may be degrees in the development of the 

 vital, sensitive, and intellectual qualities ; but there is nothing 

 intermediate between life and non-life, — feeling and insensi- 

 bility, — thinking and not thinking." Thus, the animal, ac- 

 cording to Geoffroy, does not think, — man alone thinks ; the 



