16 INTRODUCTION TO 



Animals and Vegetables, Comparison between. 



It is a common observation that there is a gradual change from the 

 most perfect to the most imperfect animal. Man is given as the most 

 perfect ; but which is the most imperfect is hard to say. They have 

 carried this still further, and say the change is continued into the vege- 

 table ; but they are not determined where the animal ends and where 

 the vegetable begins. However, if tbere be any justness in the obser- 

 vations, I should imagine that this might be determined by careful 

 observation to find out absolute principles peculiar to each ; for, in the 

 Animal Kingdom, each distinction differs sufficiently from that nearest 

 to it to determine to which it belongs, and the same thing with regard to 

 the Vegetable Kingdom : so that if the change be equal, it will be easy 

 to fix on the animal and on the vegetable. To clear up this point, it will 

 first be necessary to give a true and absolute definition of an animal. 



One great difference between the animal and the vegetable is in the 

 mode of digestion. In the animal the food is digested or animalized in 

 the stomach, and afterwards absorbed and taken into the common mass 

 of juices. This is the great use of the stomach, viz. to annualize all 

 digestible substances for the future nourishment of the animal. 



"What other changes, processes, additions, or reductions it may after- 

 wards undergo in the lungs, is, I believe, not yet known. But whatever 

 it be, it sets out from that point to all parts of the body ; as the vege- 

 table juices set out from the roots, itc. to all parts of the plant. But 

 the difference between these two is, that, in the animal the juices are 

 first animalized, and become a moving part of the body, while the 

 vegetable juices are to be considered as no part of the vegetable. In 

 the vegetable the [nutritive] juices are taken in unaltered, and are 

 propelled through the canals of the plant to all the different parts, 

 similar to the [movement of the] blood ; but whether they undergo any 

 change in this passage is not, I believe, as yet known. 



However, this juice must be changed somewhere ; it must be vege- 

 talized before it can become a part of a plant. The question, therefore, 

 will be, whether this juice is changed in its passage through the canals 

 of the plant, so as to be really vegetalized before it arrives at its place 

 of destination ? Or, whether it passes on, in its mineral form, to its 

 place of destination, and is only changed there ? "Whichever way it is, 

 there must always be a change at the place of destination, for there the 

 different parts are formed from these juices, whatever they are, and 

 therefore a second change must take place. 



The circumstance of engrafting or inoculating would make us, at 

 first sight, suspect that the juices are changed in the part to which they 

 are ultimately destined ; for whatever the part is that is engrafted, it 



