the Developement of the seminal Germ. 265 
almost to the rank of the animal, But this is evidently an extra- 
‘vagant assumption, which the phenomena of vegetable life will 
by no means warrant, and which cannot consequently be admitted. 
Others, more moderate in their assumptions, have been contented 
with claiming for vegetables the faculty of sensation, alleging that. 
there are phenomena exhibited within the extent of the vegetable 
kingdom, which it is impossible to account for on any other 
principle ; such as that of the irritability of the sensitive plant, 
the fecundation of the valisneria, the sleep of the papilionacee,, 
and others. But whatever may be the value or fate of this claim, 
it does not at all affect the merits of the claim now advanced.. 
For, in the first place, it does not necessarily involve the attribute. 
either of animal passion or sensàátion, any more than it involves. 
the faculty either of seeing or hearing; as being altogether the 
instinct of a different order of being. In the second place, it is- 
sufficiently elevated above any cause merely chemical or me- 
chanical, to sanction the belief of its adequacy to the prod uction. 
of the effect ascribed to it. And, in the third place; itis claimed. 
only in a case analogous to that in which a similar principle 1s 
acknowledged to act in the animal subject. Whence we infer 
the agency of an instinctive principle in the vege table subject 
also, as being the key that opens up the way to the solution.of 
the difficulty.in question, and unriddles the mystery. of the de- 
velopement of the seminal Germ, without which it is indeed. 
altogether incomprehensible; but with which it admits of an 
easy and luminous explication, drawing closer the analogy that 
subsists between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and en- 
hancing our notions of the wisdom.of the Divine Mind. _ 
Thus, then, it is that the attribute of vegetable instinct, acting 
agreeably to the original impulse communicated to it by the hand 
of nature, directs the radicle uniformly downwards, and in con- 
x currence: 
