On the Vital Principle/Book 2/Prelude to Chapter 3

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On the Vital Principle
by Aristotle, translated by Charles Collier
Book 2, Prelude to Chapter 3
254644On the Vital Principle — Book 2, Prelude to Chapter 3Charles CollierAristotle


PRELUDE TO CHAPTER III.
The inquiry into the faculties and functions of living beings is here continued, for the purpose of determining, through them, the source from which life is derived; and the distinction between the animal and vegetable kingdom is, incidentally, alluded to. That distinction is placed in the presence or absence of sentient properties; and so Lamarck[1] distinguishes plants, by their want of irritability, that is sensibility, from animals.

  1. Hist. Nat. T. I. p. 77.