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    * Next in importance to the physician , knowledge of this kind is important to those who have the exclusive care of infancy ; almost the entire care of childhood ; a great part of the care of the sick ; without whose enlightened concurrence the physician can seldom completely carry his object into effect ; and by whose instructed minds multitudes of children , dearly loved and deeply mourned for , would be saved from an early grave ; and those that are saved would rise

    into maturity , with physical constitutions , with intellectual faculties , and with moral qualities , incomparably healthier , stronger , and nobler than they at present possess . That notion of delicacy which would exclude women from a class of knowledge calculated , in an extraordinary degree , to open and expand their minds , and to fit them for the performance of their duties , appears tome alike degrading to those to whom it affects to show respect , and debasing to the mind that entertains it . '

    The function chosen for illustration in this course is the circulation of the blood ; but the two first lectures are devoted to a statement of the peculiar phenomena of life , and of the mode in which organization advances , from its most simple to its most complex state , while , as the conclusion of the whole , the mind is led to perceive the ultimate object of organization and

    life—ENJOYMENT . The exposition of the distinctive characters of life is thus given : — * What is the distinction between a living being and an inorganic body—between a plant and a stone ? The plant carries on a number of processes which , are not performed by the stone ? The

    plant absorbs food ; converts its food into its own proper substance ; arranges this substance into bark , wood , vessels , leaves , and other organized structures ; grows ; arrives at maturity ; decays ; derives from a parent the primary structure and the first impulse upon which these varied actions depend ; gives origin to a new being similar to itself , and , after a certain time , terminates its existence in death .

    ' But no such phenomena are exhibited by the stone . Nothing analogous to the processes by which these results are produced is observable in any body that is destitute of life . On the contrary , every one of these processes is carried on , without ceasing , by every living creature . These processes are , therefore , denominated vital ; they are peculiar to the state of ^ life ; and hence they afford characters by which the living being is distinguished from the inorganic body /

    The distinction between the two great classes of living beings is next pointed out , 4 And what is the distinction between an animal and a plant i The animal possesses properties of which the plant is destitute . The animal is endowed with two new and superior powers to which there is nothing analogous in the plant . These superadded powers are , the power of sensation and the power of voluntary motion /

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    50 Dr . SonthiVood Smith on the

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1833, page 50, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2606/page/50/