^ LECTURE L 



known in the animal kingdom. The best philoso- 

 phers have long ago observed very strong analo- 

 gies between these two classes of Beings, and the 

 moderns have every day found reason to extend 

 that analogy; and some have even talked of a scale 

 of Nature, in which, by an insensible transition, a 

 connexion is made from the most perfect of ani- 

 mals to the most imperfect of vegetables. Now in 

 such a scale who shall say, here animal life entirely 

 ends, and here the vegetable life begins ? or Just 

 thus far, and no farther, one sort of operation goes, 

 and just here another quite different sort takes place ? 

 Or again, who will venture to say. Life in every 

 animal is a thing absolutely different from that 

 ■which we dignify by the same name in every vege- 

 table ? and might not a man even be excused if he 

 should modestly doubt whether vegetables may 

 not themselves be considered as a very low and im- 

 perfect tribe of animals, as animals might, in like 

 manner, be considered as a more perfect and 

 exalted kind of vegetables ? 



At our next meeting I shall proceed to give a 

 general description of the different tribes of the 

 animal kingdom. 



