Instinct and reason, philosophically investigated : with a view to ascertain the principles of the science of education / by Thomas Jarrold, M.D.

  • Thomas Jarrold
Date:
1736 [i.e. 1836]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Instinct and reason, philosophically investigated : with a view to ascertain the principles of the science of education / by Thomas Jarrold, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

    40/362 (page 32)
    .^2 the wood of difFerent trees—to him the result is the same—but animals living on the same food as poultry, in a farm-yard, differ in the colour and flavour of their flesh, doubtless they were originally constituted with the difference which now exists, but how has that difference been maintained ? either the same elements are differently combined in digestion, or from the same food a variety of elements are obtain- ed, part of which are suited to one animal and not to another, in either case it is not difficult to supjiose that the species of monad determines the digestion of the animal. The farmer does not always sow wheat, or his field would, in a few years, scarcely repro- duce the seed. The food proper to this grain other crops have consumed, but rank weeds still find food suited to them in great abundance; be it a species of monad, or some quality of the soil friendly to their production, the fact that the same food does not suit all plants is evident, and if the stalk of the grain and of the weed be infused in water, it will be equally established, that the growth of the ]y]ant adds to the number of living organic atoms. There cannot be a tree unless there first be the elements of which it consists. Land is manured in anticipation of the crop. The Gardener expects, in some way or other, that what he supplies will promote vegetable growth, and should he discover that, contrary to all analogy, a plant weiofhs more than the seed and the food it had con- sumed, he would probably attribute it to some occult cause; but if he be a man of observation, he will have seen that the soil round some trees increases in depth.