436 THE UNIVERSE. 



directing power. It is evident that they are governed by a 

 vital force which binds all the springs of existence ; when 

 that disappears, nothing preserves the plant from destruc- 

 tion. 



All naturalists who have treated the question seriously as 

 physiologists maintain that plants enjoy quite as active a 

 life as many animals, and that they possess traces of sensi- 

 bility and contractility. Biehat, the most illustrious of 

 modern anatomists, in his admirable " Recherches sur la 

 Vie et la Mort," admits this without hesitation. 



Numerous experiments prove clearly that there are in 

 plants traces of sensibility analogous to animal sensibility. 

 Electricity will kill them; narcotics paralyze or destroy 

 them. By sprinkling opium over certain species they have 

 been thrown into a profound sleep. Messrs. Goeppert and 

 Macaire, in their interesting investigations, have observed 

 that prussic acid poisons plants with as much rapidity as it 

 does animals. 



Does not the sensitive plant contract visibly when we 

 irritate it ? Do we not know that vegetable tissues shrivel 

 of their own accord so soon as we bring them in contact 

 with any stimulant? Carradori noticed that exciting the 

 tips of the leaves of a lettuce was sufficient to make it 

 eject little drops of its own juice. 



If we divorce ourselves from all our old ideas of vegeta- 

 ble life, and simply observe its phenomena, we shall arrive 

 at conclusions which will astonish us. We shall be sur- 

 prised to find that the energy displayed in the biological 

 actions of plants often surpasses everything seen in the 

 animal kingdom, a fact which has only remained unno- 



