Excerpt from A d104-Book of Botany

IT is customary to place all living beings in either the animal 01 vegetable kingdoms, but in reality a sharp boundary line between animals and plants first becomes possible when they exhibit a complicated structure. In those of more simple organisation all distinctions disappear, and it becomes difficult to define the exact limits of Botany and Zoology. This, in fact, could scarcely be otherwise, as all the processes of life, in both the animal and vegetable kingdoms, are dependent On the same substance, protoplasm. With more complicated organisation, the specific differences increase, and the characteristics distinguishing animal from vegetable life become more obvious. For the present, it must be confessed, the recognition Of an organism, as an animal or a plant, is dependent upon its corre spondence with an abstract idea of what a plant or animal Should be, .based on certain points of agreement between the members of each class. A satisfactory basis for the Separation of all living organisms into the categories of animals or plants can only be obtained when it is shown that all organisms distinguished as animals are in reality genetically connected, and that a similar connection exists between all plants. The proof of this can only be arrived at through the theory OF evolution.

From the study of the fossil remains and impressions Of animals and plants, it has been established that in former epochs forms Of life. Differing from those of the present age existed on the earth. It is also generally assumed that all living animals and plants have been derived by gradual modification from previously existing forms. This leads to the further conclusion that those organisms possess ing closely Similar structure, which are united as species in a genus, are in reality related to one another. It is also probable that the union of corresponding genera into one familv and of families into higher groups serves to give expression to a real relationship existing between them.

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