194 ZOOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY 



that is to say, if it is not incessantly making good its losses by sub- 

 stances introduced into its interior, in short, if it does not take food 

 whenever it needs it. 



8. The masses of inorganic bodies consist of separate parts which 

 are united by accident ; these bodies are not born, nor are they ever 

 the produce of a germ or bud whose development gives rise to an 

 individual exactly similar to that from which it springs. 



All Hving bodies, on the contrary, are really born, and are the pro- 

 duce either of a germ which has been vivified and prepared for hfe by 

 fertiHsation, or else simply of an expansible bud. In either of these cases 

 new individuals arise exactly Uke those which have produced them. 



9. Lastly, no inorganic body can die, inasmuch as no such body 

 possesses life. Death is a necessary result of the existence of life in 

 a body, for it is only the complete cessation of organic movements, 

 following upon some disturbance which makes these movements hence- 

 forth impossible. 



All living bodies, on the contrary, are subject to an inevitable death ; 

 for it is a property of life or of the movements constituting life in a 

 body, to bring about after a certain period a condition of the organs 

 which makes it impossible for them to carry on their functions, 

 and which therefore destroys the faculty of performing organic 

 movements. 



Hence between crude or inorganic bodies and Hving bodies there 

 exists an immense difference, a great hiatus, in short, a radical dis- 

 tinction such that no inorganic body whatever can even be approached 

 by the simplest of Kving bodies. Life and its constituents in a body 

 make the fundamental difference that distinguishes this body from all 

 those that are without it. 



How great then is the error of those who try to find a connection 

 or sort of gradation between certain living bodies and inorganic bodies ! 



Although M. Richerand in his interesting Physiologie has dealt 

 with the same subject that I am now treating, I have had to reproduce 

 his views together with modifications of my own ; since his studies 

 are very important on the subjects which I still have to set forth. 



A comparison between plants and animals does not immediately 

 concern my thesis in this Part II. ; nevertheless, as such a comparison 

 assists in the general purpose of this work, I propose here to state a 

 few of its most prominent characteristics. But first let us see what 

 plants and animals actually have in common, in their capacity as 

 hving bodies. 



The only point in common between animals and plants is the pos- 

 session of hfe ; hence they both fulfil the conditions of its existence, 

 and possess the general faculties to which it gives rise. 



