a

C. Yes, indeed.
F. Or from a cabbage ?

C. A horse from a cabbage! yes súrely I can.

F. Very well; then let us see if you can tell how a horse differs from a cabbage ?

C. Very easily ; a horse is alive.

F. True ; and how is every thing called which is alive?

C. I believe all things that are alive are called animals.

F. Right; but can you tell me what a horse and a cabbage are alike in?

C. Nothing, I believe.

F. Yes, there is one thing in which the slenderest moss that grows upon the wall is like the greatest man or the highest angel.

a

F. A horse, then, is a creature, but a living creature; that is to say, an animal.

C. And a cabbage is a dead creature; that is the difference.

F. Not so, neither; nothing is dead that has never been alive.

C. What must I call it, then, if it is neither dead nor alive?

F. An inanimated creature; there is the animate and the inanimate creation. Plants, stones, metals, are of the latter class ; horses belong to the former.

C. But the gardener told me some of my cabbages were dead, and some were alive.

F. Very true. Plants have a vegetative life, a principle of growth and decay; this is common to them with all organized bodies; but they have not sensation, at least we do not know they have--they have not life, therefore, in the sense in which animals enjoy it.

C. A horse is called an animal, then.

F. Yes; but a salmon is an animal, and so is a sparrow; how will you

dis tinguish a horse from these ?

C. A salmon lives in the water, and swims; a sparrow flies, and lives in the air.

F. I think a salmon could not walk upon the ground, even if it could live out of the water.

C. No, indeed, it has no legs.
F. And a bird would not gallop like

a
a horse.
C. No; it would hop away upon

its two slender legs.

F. How many legs has a horse ?
C. Four.
F. And an ox?
C. Four likewise.
F. And a camel ?
C. Four still.
F. Do you know any animals which

live upon

the earth that have not four legs ?

C. I think not; they have all four legs; except worms and insects, and "such things.

F. You remember, I suppose, what an animal is called that has four legs; you have it in your little books ?

C. A quadruped.

F. A horse then is a quadruped: by this we distinguish him from birds, fishes, and insects.

C. And from men.

F. True; but if you had been talking about birds, you would not have found it so easy to distinguish them.

C. How so? a man is not at all like a bird.

F. Yet an ancient philosopher could find no way to distinguish them, but by calling man a two-legged animal without feathers.

C. I think he was very silly; they are not at all alike, though they have both iwo legs.

F. Another ancient philosopher, called Diogenes, was of your opinion. He stripped a cock of his feathers, and turned him into the school where Plato, that was his name, was teaching, and said, Here is Plato's man for

you. C. I wish I had been there, I should have laughed very much.

F. Probably. Before we laugh at others, however, let us see what we can do ourselves. We have not yet found any thing which will distinguish a horse from an elephant, or from a Norway rat.

C. O, that is easy enough. An elephant is very large, and a rat is very small; a horse is neither large nor small.

F. Before we go any further, look what is settled on the skirt of your coat.

.