The philosophy of natural history / by William Smellie ... ; with an introduction and various additions ... by John Ware.

  • William Smellie
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The philosophy of natural history / by William Smellie ... ; with an introduction and various additions ... by John Ware. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Plants, on the contrary, are undergoing constant and sponta¬ neous changes ; some are dying and decaying, whilst others are sprouting up.from the earth, coming forth, as it were, from a new creation, giving birth to a new set of individuals like themselves, and sinking in their turn to decay. Further still, we see animals, not only coming into existence, living, growing, and giving origin to other animals, but exercising various other offices ; feeling, moving, uttering sounds, suf¬ fering and enjoying, establishing a thousand connexions with things and beings about them, which contribute to the sup¬ port or happiness of their existence. In this way we have come to the division of created things into the three classes above mentioned. It is sufficient and convenient for the pop¬ ular purposes to which it has been usually applied, but it is evident, if we but examine it, that it is not strictly and scien¬ tifically correct. A more accurate and philosophical division of natural ob¬ jects is into such as are possessed of life^ and such as are not possessed of life. This throws animals and vegetables into one class, and all mineral substances into the other; for there is a much more close and intimate relation between the two former, than there is between either of them and the latter. They have many circumstances of analogy with one another in respect to their structure and functions, in which they do not at all resemble any object or operation of the mineral king¬ dom. These two classes then, include all the various bodies which compose the world around us, and those belonging to each are distinguished as possessing certain general properties, and being governed by certain general laws, common, in a greater or less degree, to all of the same class. In the first place, living bodies are distinguished from other substances in the mode of their origin ; they are always pro¬ duced by other preceding individuals similar to themselves ; they are always the offspring of parents. This is an obvious and complete distinction. No mineral substance, no sub¬ stance not possessed of life, is ever brought into existence in this way. It is true, that new bodies in the mineral world are sometimes formed by the accidental aggregation of par¬ ticles, or by the spontaneous combinations which are occa¬ sionally the result of chemical laws j but this is cleaidy some- thing very different from the mode of production which takes place in living bodies. One stone does not produce another like itself, a crystal does not produce a crystal, nor one grain of sand another. There is nothing like the relation of pa¬ rent and offspring. ^
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