the Developement of the Seminal Germ. 267 
into organized structures*. Now, what are we to understand by 
the means here alluded to, which are evidently an admission of. 
something more than merely common matter? We are not in- 
deed inforined in direct terms, but we are warranted in inferring, 
that the means here alluded to are neither more nor less than 
life itself; which is represented as rendering the analysis of the 
vegetablo subject exceedingly complicated in comparison with 
that of inorganic bodies, “ by its giving a peculiar character to 
all its productions, the power of attraction and repulsion, com- - 
bination and decomposition, being subservient to it.” If, there- 
fore, Sir Humphry Davy is not an advocate for the doctrine of 
materialism, and life merely an attribute of organization, and 
matter capable of organizing itself, which is absurd, he admits 
all we contend for, namely, the existence and agency of a living 
principle, in the common acceptation of the term, on which the 
functions of the vegetable organs depend, and in which we main- 
tain that a species of instinct may certainly reside, similar in kind 
to that of animal instinct, but inferior in degree, as being the 
guide and director of an inferior nature, conspiring to promote 
the ends of vegetable life, and acting with unconscious but un- 
erring aim. 
But still there remains a circumstance unexplained, that is at 
least closely connected with the present subject, namely, the 
impossibility of converting the radicle into the plumelet, or the 
plumelet into the radicle, as the root and branches of the vege- 
tating plant may afterwards be sometimes converted. For if 
the stem of a young plum- or cherry-tree, but particularly of a 
willow, is taken in the autumn, and bent so as that one-half of 
the top may be laid in the earth, one half of the root being at the 
* Agricultural Chem. Lect. v. + Elem. of Agricultural Chem. Lect, ii. 
YOL XI. 2 N same 
