ON THE DISTtNCTIVE CHARACTERS OB^ 



nervous system, which they are not, to contend that a sense of feeling wa& 

 more exerted than in the reproduction of the separate organs of an animal, 

 to support the common wear and tear of animal life. 



Why then should it ever have been contended that such a kind of sensa- 

 tion is necessary in the formation of seeds, by the conjoint action of what 

 have been denominated a male and female organization ? The stimulus 

 of moisture, of light, heat, and air, evolves equally the specific flower ; and 

 the ever-present and all-prevailing law of Nature determines the different 

 parts of the flower, or the different flowers themselves, to be of different 

 characters : the farina is secreted from the anther, apart of which is called 

 the male organ ; and as it drops upon tiie open tube of the pistil, which is 

 denominated the female organ, it becomes a new stimulus, and excites to 

 a new action. But neither stimulus nor action are necessarily sensation, 

 nor the sources of sensation. The pistil, or rather the receptacle which 

 lies at the bottom of the pistil, in consequence of this new excitation, evolves 

 or produces a new material, which we call a seed ; but during the formation 

 and evolution of this seed from first to last, there is no more necessity for 

 supposing the existence of any thing like sensation, than during the ante- 

 cedent stimulus of the light and heat, and moisture, upon the parent stem 

 by which the flower itself became evolved; or during the same stimulus 

 upon the joints or bulbs of the plant by which an equally healthy and perfect 

 progeny has, perhaps, been produced from these diflferent organs. 



I have already observed, that in the lowest class of animals we meet with 

 instances of reproduction equally varied, and of the very same nature : 

 sometimes by buds or bulbs, as in the case of the polype ; sometimes by 

 slips or lateral oflfsets, as in one or two species of the leech ; and sometimes, 

 and perhaps more generally, by seeds or ova. But as, in the tribes I now 

 refer to, we meet with neither nerves or nervous system, and as the repro- 

 duction of hving matter does not necessarily demand the existence of a 

 nervous system, or of that corporeal feeling to which alone, so far as we 

 are acquainted with nature, a nervous system is capable of giving birth ; 

 we have the strongest reason for supposing that the generation of progeny 

 is, in these cases, as unaccompanied with passion or sensation as in the 

 instance of plants. 



I have dwelt the longer upon this subject, as being anxious to divest one 

 of the most elegant and interesting brariches of natural history of the gross- 

 ness and indelicacy with \yhich it has been incrusted by the language and 

 opinions of many modern physiologists : and to open it as widely as pos- 

 sible to the study and pursuit of every one. 



It must be obvious, I think, ihat instinct has no more necessary connex- 

 ion with feeling or sensation than with intelligence ; and that even the 

 faculties of attachment to life, resistance to destruction, the economy of 

 pairing, and the process of generation, though often combined with both 

 sensation and intelligence, are not necessarily combined with either of 

 them ; that intelligence is not more discrepant from sensation than sensa- 

 tion is from instinct ; that either may exist separately, and that all may 

 exist together. 



Whence derive the young of every kind a knowledge of the peculiar 

 powers that are to appertain to them hereafter, even before the full forma- 

 tion of the organs in which those powers are to reside? To adopl th*^ 

 beautiful lana^uage of the first physiologist of Kome, 



