iSo5.] The Distinction between Animals and Vegetables. 277 
A palpable error, we say, because, as was pointed out bv 
Professoi Burdon Sanderson and Professor E. Ray Lankestei" 
ot h e r 1 orffan i snf V f ba ? eria ' &C ’’ a ” d their "relations to 
othei organisms identify them with plants. As such th^v 
his tndee l ln f " rec0gmsed , b ^ botanists and zoologists. i" 
has, indeed, been suggested that they might be viewed as 
do°n P wh ch'Tf " P m n i S bUt Physiologically animals, a supposi- 
tion which, if verified, would place these beings in an inter- 
aifd to^animateT' Ce ‘ tai " ^ *o plants 
But it may be serviceable to examine further into the 
efinitions for plant ” and “ animal ” proposed by Professor 
mafo VolY' f LCt U ? l0 ° k at the relations of Piant" and ani- 
mals to the atmosphere in virtue of which they are commonly 
pronounced mutually complementary, the one class com" 
pensatmg for the work of the other. The vast majority of 
p ants, as it has long been known, take into their system 
the caibonic acid of the atmosphere— a compound— and de- 
compose it, exhaling the free oxygen and retaining the 
carbon This is surely an analytical process. The vast 
majority of animals, on the contrary, take into their lungs, 
gills, or tracheae free oxygen, and convert it in their bodies into 
the compound, carbonic acid. This seems to us a synthetic 
operation. J 
It is, indeed, held that plants feed upon inorganic matters 
01 upon organisms which have been decomposed into such 
substances as ammonia, nitrogen acids, &c., whilst animals 
require to feed upon organic matter. Hence would follow 
ie mfeience that the plant has the power of building up the 
complex molecules needed for its life and growth. But we 
bnd that the carnivorous plants, which are far more numerous 
nan A is commonly supposed (and some of which even prey 
upoii'Vertebrate animals), feed like animals upon ready-made 
albumenoid matter, and seem to require it if they are to 
tlourish Hence we may fairly infer that they have not the 
power of forming such matters synthetically in a sufficient 
degree. Here, therefore, we find no absolute distinction 
between plants and animals. 
Again, Engelmann has found animals — Vorticellas — which 
decompose carbonic acid and assimilate its carbon by means 
0 a chloiophyll, forming part and parcel of their own living 
stiuCture. Surely these cases are enough to break down 
Piofessor Frankland’s definition of plants and animals. An 
undoubted plant we see may have, partially at least, to sub- 
sist upon highly complex organic matter, and an undoubted 
animal may be able to assimilate carbon from the carbonic 
