18 INTRODUCTION TO 



Vegetation appears to be the easiest transition from common matter ; 

 for it is supported by common matter, or it has a power of converting 

 common matter into its own kind. Animal matter appears to be a 

 second remove from common matter ; for it cannot be continued or 

 supported by common matter, therefore it is obliged principally to the 

 vegetable ; however, it is often dependent upon itself [or matter of its 

 own kind for nourishment]. But these last [or the carnivorous animals] 

 are few in comparison to the others, and without the other resource 

 animals would annihilate themselves. Let us reckon the whole animal 

 creation as three ; two parts of the animals rive upon vegetables, and 

 the third of the animals live upon the two other parts : in this way the 

 three are still preserved. 



Of the Similarity of the Vegetable to the Animal in the Circumstance 

 of Engrafting. 



Animals and vegetables in this respect are exactly similar. For 

 example, a part of an animal is engrafted upon another ; that part does 

 not in the least partake of the part of the animal it is engrafted upon, 

 but keeps the original disposition and continues to grow exactly as it 

 would have grown if it had not been removed from its original stock. 

 The same thing attends a vegetable. 



In many things animals differ from vegetables ; viz. a part of an 

 animal is truly a part, but the part of a vegetable is a whole ; for every 

 part of a vegetable in general is a whole ; therefore a vegetable that 

 is engrafted, not only continues to grow in the same manner that it 

 would have done, if it had never been removed, but is a perfect tree. It 

 not only forms its own leaves after its own kind, flowers of its own 

 kind, fruit after its own kind, but it is also capable of producing seed, 

 which completes the tree. In the last [property] it differs from all 

 those animals which produce their young from seed. 



As a vegetable is a perfect plant in every point, every point is capable 

 of producing what the whole is capable of producing ; but this is not 

 the case with an animal. An animal is a compound of parts totally 

 different in their sensations, stimuli, powers, and uses, from one 

 another ; each part doing one office and no more, and all obliged to 

 one source for support and sensation. Their specific stimulus [is] 

 within themselves; or their specific stimuli, and the powers and 

 operations arising therefrom, are [severally] within themselves, having 

 no connexion with any [other] part of the body ; therefore [a part is] 



fluid, ceases the moment that the plant has received an injury ; and is more active 

 in proportion as the temperature of the atmosphere is higher.] 



