CHAP, in.] Hie Movements of Plants. 547 



growth of stems and roots is caused by a polarity of a definite' 

 kind in every plant, from which we may argue, he says, ' to hi- her 

 connections of our planet in the world of space.' He says again, 

 * that it is natural to conjecture that light is the cause of the 

 sleep of plants,' and then gives the contradictory statements of 

 Hill, Zinn, and De Candolle, all jumbled together into an inex- 

 tricable tangle in a fashion which sets all maxims of reasonable 

 discussion at defiance. He then puts aside all attempts at 

 mechanical explanation with the remark, that plants observe 

 their regular times of sleep even when kept in the dark and at 

 a low temperature, for this evident habituation is one of the 

 most important marks of vitality. He is led to similar results by 

 Desfontaine's observation, that a Mimosa, exposed to the shak- 

 ing of a wheeled vehicle, closes at first but then opens again. 

 Speaking of the rapid oscillations of the leaves of Hedysarum 

 gyrans and similar movements, he rejects Percival's idea of a 

 will in plants, but says that the attempts to derive them from 

 mechanical or chemical causes has only led to solemn trifling. 



It is plain that men who could print such remarks as these 

 and still worse than these, could not possibly effect anything 

 in the province of botany which we are considering. The 

 broad and shallow stream of such opinions as these flowed on 

 till later even than 1830, but it ran dry at last when its supplies 

 were cut off by the effect of new discoveries, and scientific 

 investigation again gained the upper hand. Some calmer 

 thinkers, who could not rest content with empty words, had 

 meanwhile been pursuing the path trodden by Ray, Dodart, 

 Hales* and Du Hamel, and by experiment and earnest reflec- 

 tion had brought new facts to light, which were at least calcu- 

 lated to pave the way for the mechanical explanation of phyto- 

 dynamical phenomena. Senebier in his ' Physiologic vegetale ' 

 (1700) had described some minute researches which he had 

 made into the subject of etiolation ; and though he made the 

 great mistake of attributing the want of colour in the leaves 

 and the excessive elongation of the stems to the decom- 



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