lichen and a coralline, a flustra and a flag, or even a mushroom and a mollusc, andhe will at once confess, at 
least by silence, if not by words, that he “ kens not which they be.” 
Such presuming self-confidence in what they know, is the “badge of ignorance and the curse of fools;” 
it is the humble privilege of the wise alone to doubt ; and they who know the most are always the most 
sensible how little the most enlightened know. 
But this matter is apocryphal not to the unlearned and the ignorant alone : physiologists the most 
acute have laboured, and do labour, still in vain, succinctly, yet comprehensively, to define a plant. The 
difficulty, however, consists not so much in the perception of the differences which undoubtedly do exist, as 
in reducing these perceptions of the progressive scale of creation to our still very imperfect language. The 
dilemma somewhat resembles that in which an ancient philosopher is said to have been involved, who when 
desired to state what motion is, after much consideration, rose from his seat, walked towards the inquirer, 
aud replied, “You see it, I can shew it to you, but I cannot tell you what motion is. Thus, also, to our 
question I would answer, here are plants; you see them; I can shew them to you even if I cannot, at this 
early period of our course, precisely tell you what a vegetable is. 
Let not the bearing of this statement, however, by any one be misunderstood. Remember it is not 
science which makes the difficulty she here points out; she only shews what already is : just as “a micros- 
cope does not make the hairs on a mite’s back, but only brings them within our sphere of vision. Examine 
for a moment these specimens illustrative of the different departments of the vegetable world ; these mush- 
rooms, flags, and mosses ; these jointed and these jointless ferns ; these grasses, sedges, rushes, lilies, palms; 
these pines, and forest trees; and these more showy flowering herbs and shrubs; of each of which extensive 
sections, but meagre examples, can, of necessity, be brought before you, and yet which are scattered in such 
infinite profusion “ o’er all the deep green earth,” that their varied forms and beautiful appearances are 
familiar to the least observant : examine these, and say, do they not attest the dogma of him of old, that a 
vegetable is, indeed, a various, a very various thing, of which it is difficult to give a definition : and do they 
not equally proclaim that science does not make the difficulty she here points out ? do they not declare that 
she only shews what already is, although it may have hitherto escaped our observation ? And hence we 
may conclude that the unleai'ned do not know more truly, because they are insensible of the imperfections 
of their knowledge, any more than a road becomes smooth to the purblind, merely because they do not see 
its roughness. Whatever is, still is, whether we know it or know it not ; doubtless from the beginning 
eight planets always were, although the ancients knew but seven ; for Herschel’s telescope did not create 
the Georgium Sidus, but only shewed to man what mortal eyes had never seen before. 
But the difficulty of diagnosis between animals and plants, and even between living and lifeless beings, 
so often and by so many dwelt on, is rather a speculative than a practical obscurity. Every one is sensible 
of differences existing between the numerous productions of nature ; for were not such differences obvious, 
the whole would be esteemed not various, but the same. All persons, then, distinguish the peculiarities 
that mark the successive grades of physical existence, though few are competent to state precisely in what 
that difference consists : the one is the unsought observation of the savage, the other the hard-earned 
achievement of the sage ; the former a perception that no one can avoid, the latter a science in which, not 
seldom, the wisest are at fault. 
Still, before we presume to talk of plants, it may perhaps be required that we should attempt to solve 
the question that so continually recurs ; viz. what is a vegetable ? For plants are the principles on which all 
botanic lore depends ; they are the very subject-matter upon which we must discourse : and although we 
cannot absolutely, we can relatively define them, which relative definition is, in truth, all that can legiti- 
mately be sought in any branch of natural history or philosophy. With this relative definition we shall, 
therefore, rest content ; for the search after the absolute and positive too often becomes, as Butler has ob- 
served, on a somewhat similar occasion : — 
“ An ignis fatuus that bewitches, 
And leads men into pools and ditches.” 
Hence, to shew what constitutes this various thing we call a vegetable ; i. e. to indicate the various 
phenomena exhibited by certain physical existences, to note what characters distinguish the organic from 
the inorganic world ; and amongst organic beings the vegetable, or merely vital, from the animal or sensual 
creation ; in a word, which constitutes the several grades of men, brutes, and plants, involves much curious 
and important knowledge. 
