OF NATURAL HISTORY. 3 



. Sir Charles Linnaeus, in his Fundamenta Botanica, intends to 

 difcriminate the three kingdoms of Nature in two lines. * Stones,' 

 fays he, * grow ; vegetables grow and live ; animals grow, live, 

 • and/^f/*.' This is an affemblage of words, the meaning of 

 which is entirely perverted. The idea of growth implies nutrition 

 and expanfion by the intervention of organs. The magnitude of 

 ftones may be augmented by an accretion of new matter. But this 

 is not growth, or expanfion of parts. The fecond definition, 

 ' That vegetables grow and live,' is equally inaccurate. Inftead 

 of proving the life of plants, Linnaeus takes it for granted, and 

 makes it the charafteriftic between vegetables and brute matter. 

 The third, ' That animals grow, live, and feel,' is not lefs excep- 

 tionable. Growth, life, and mere fenfation, convey the moft ig- 

 noble notions of animated beings. From this definition, we would 

 be led to imagine, that Linnaeus meant to defcribe the condition of 

 a polypus or an oyfter. All animals, it is true, grow, live, and 

 feel : But thefe are only the paffive properties of animals. The 

 definition includes none of thofe inftindive, intelledual, and adive 

 powers which exalt the animal above the vegetable, and fo emi- 

 nently diftinguifh the different tribes from each other. 



Thefe and many other abortive attempts have been made to af- 

 certain the precife boundaries between the animal and vegetable. 

 Definitions have been the perpetual aim ^of moft writers on this 

 fubjedt. But definitions, when applied to natural objects, muft al- 

 ways be vague and elufory. We know not the principle of animal 

 life. We are equally ignorant of the eflential caufe of vegetable 

 exiftence. It is vain, therefore, to dream of being able to define 

 what we never can know. We may, hovv^ever, difcover fome qua- 

 lities common to the animal as well as to the vegetable. 



A 2 Senfation, 



* Fund. Bot. § 3. 



