Volume 1

A history of the earth, and animated nature / By Oliver Goldsmith. With an introductory view of the animal kingdom, tr. from the French by Baron Cuvier. And copious notes embracing accounts of new discoveries in natural history: And a life of the author by Washington Irving. And a carefully prepared index to the whole work.

  • Oliver Goldsmith
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of the earth, and animated nature / By Oliver Goldsmith. With an introductory view of the animal kingdom, tr. from the French by Baron Cuvier. And copious notes embracing accounts of new discoveries in natural history: And a life of the author by Washington Irving. And a carefully prepared index to the whole work. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/660
    ties are circumscribed; and we may therefore define a species to be—a group or assemblage of individuals, descended one from another, or from common parents, or from others resembling them as much as they resemble each other. However rigor- ous this definition may appear, its application in practice to particular individuals is involved in many difficulties, especially when we are unable to make the necessary experiments. In conclusion, we shall repeat, that all living bodies are endowed with the functions of absorption [by which they draw in foreign substances]; of assimilation [by which they convert them into organized matter]; of exhalation [by which they surrender their superfluous materials]; of development [by which their parts increase in size and density]; and of generation [by which they continue the form of their species]. Birth and death are universal limits to their existence: the essential character of their structure consists in a cellular tissue or network, capable of contracting; con- taining in its meshes fluids or gases, ever in motion: and the bases of their chemical composition are substances, easily convertible into liquids or gases; or, into proximate principles, having great afiinity for each other. Fixed forms, transmitted by genera- tion, distinguish their species, determine the arrangement of the secondary functions assigned to each, and point out the part they are destined to perform on the great stage of the universe. These organized forms can neither produce themselves, nor change their characters. Life is never found separated from organization; and, when- ever the vital spark bursts into a flame, its progress is attended by a beautifully organized body. The impenetrable mystery of the pre-existence of germs alike defies observations the most delicate, and meditations the most profound. We trace an individual to its parents, and these again to their parents. After a few generations the clue is lost, and in vain we inquire. Whence arose the first animal of the species ? and what produced the first germs from which have descended the innumerable tribes of animals and plants that we see in constant succession rising around us ? Whence did the species man arise ? Philoso- phical inquiry fails to lead us through the labyrinth; and we feel the force of the same principle which inspired Adam, when he says, with Milton, “ Thou sun, fair light, And thou enlightened earth, so fresh and gay. Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains. And ye that live and move, fair creatures, tell. Tell if you saw, how came I thus, how here. Not of myself? ” SECT. III.—DIVISION OF ORGANIZED BEINGS INTO ANIMALS AND PLANTS. Animals and Plants—Irritability—Animals possess Intestinal Canals—Circulating System—their Chemical Composition—Respiration. Living or organized beings have been subdivided by universal consent, from the earliest ages, into animals endowed with sensation and motion, and into plants destitute of both, and reduced to the simple powers of vegetation. Some plants retract their leaves when touched; and all direct their roots towards moisture, and their flowers or leaves towards air and light. Certain parts of plants even exhibit vibrations, unassignable to any external cause. Yet, these different move- ments, when attentively examined, are found to possess too little resemblance to the motions of animals, to authorize us in considering them as proofs of perception and of volition. They seem to proceed from a power, possessed in general by all living substances, of contracting and expanding when stimulated,—a power to which the name of irritability has been assigned. The fibres composing the heart of animals alternately expand and contract, altogether independent of the will of the animal; and thick hair will grow on the skins of some animats, when removed into a cold climate. As we neither ascribe volition nor sensation to the heart or to the hair, so we cannot attribute these qualities to the heliotrope, to the sun-flower, or to the sensitive plant. The b