INTRODUCTION« 
on that subject, in the earliest times, to separate i¢ 
into primary divisions under the name of Kingdoms. 
Aristotle was the first who established the division. 
into the three kingdoms of Nature, namely, the 
Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral or Fossil King- 
doms*.—( Regnum animale, vegetabile, lapideum vel 
minerale. 
§ 3. 
The different manner of their propagation charac- 
terises the three Kingdoms of Nature. Fossils have 
no organs. of generation; they remain always the 
same, or are only capable of forming various com- 
pounds, but never produce their like. Plants are 
furnished with a great number of genital organs ; 
but they lose them before their death: Animals, on 
the contrary, retain these organs as long as life 
lastsT. 
That 
* Some have added an Aqueous and an Igneous Kingdom ; 
and Munchausen an intermediate kingdom containing the 
Fungi, Corallia and Polypi. Some naturalists have content- 
ed themselves with two kingdoms, the Living and Liteless ; 
but this last division is insufficient, because the former must 
be subdivided into Animals and Plants; and the other new 
kingdoms of nature are in like manner superfluous. 
++ Various means have been devised for discriminating’ Plants 
and Animals; but hitherto no one has been so fortunate as to 
discover a clear and satisfactory distinction, because nature has 
not separated them by any accurate limits. Motion from one 
place to another, the voluntary motion of particular parts, 
the orifice by which the food is taken in, and that by which 
the superfluous parts of it are discharged, are indeed charac- 
teristic 
