Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/34

 4 beneficial to them, and flourishing according to their success in satisfying their wants, may not the exercise of their vital functions be attended with some degree of sensation, however low, and some consequent share of happiness? Such a supposition accords with all the best ideas we can form of the Divine Creator; nor could the consequent uneasiness which plants must suffer, no doubt in a very low degree likewise, from the depredations of animals, bear any comparison with their enjoyment on the whole. However this may be, the want of sensation is most certainly not to be proved with regard to Vegetables, and therefore of no use as a practical means of distinguishing them, in doubtful cases, from Animals.

Some philosophers have made a locomotive power peculiarly characteristic of Animals, not being aware of the true nature of those half-animated beings called Corals and Corallines, which are fixed, as immoveably as any plants, to the bottom of the sea, while indeed many living vegetables swim around