254 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
animal nerves and organs of sense, is indispensably required to cause 
p is unsupported by facts. 
* 4, The teleological consideration of nature becomes more satisfac- 
tory when we attribute a soul to plants, than by denying it; because a 
great number of arrangements and relative proportions in nature 
acquire thereby a signification of life and importance, which would 
otherwise appear to us as dead and inert, or as empty playthings. 
* 5. That the vegetable kingdom is subservient to the wants of man 
and other animals, proves nothing against its being at the same time 
conducive to its own benefit : for we observe, that reciprocity of uses is - 
not incompatible with the design of nature, and plants have as much 
o serve the wants of animals as the reverse. 
* 6. If it should appear to us that the condition of plants would be 
miserable, considered as animated beings, in consequence of their ina- 
bility to resist injuries from man or animals, it is simply because we 
look at the theory in a human point of view. Quite otherwise will be 
our impression if we contemplate vegetable life according to its own 
peculiar character. We are, in fact, apt to attribute undeserved weight 
to this objection 
“Eni vatended that plants can have no soul, since they want 
freedom of action and spontaneous motion, we lose sight of the proofs 
which demonstrate, that plants do possess free will in the same sense 
as animals, or else we require of the former a something, which does 
not exist among the latter; because, after all, the question of real free 
will among animals is hardly admissible. 
* 8, Since the two kingdoms approach each other by an intermediate 
kingdom, in which the difference of either becomes obscure, and which 
consists of the most imperfect beings of both, we are not authorized to 
consider the vegetable kingdom as absolutely subordinate; especially 
as it rises from the said intermediate kingdom in its more perfect 
members. This consideration, as well as the cireumstance that both 
kingdoms have the same date of creation, proves that neither of them 
can be subordinate, as far as regards animation. 
* 9. If it is pretended, that the signs of centralization, of connecting 
individuality, or of a consistent balance in the organization of plants 
are wanting, as the condition or expression of unity or individuality of 
a soul, we are either mistaking the right point of view, or we require 
that in plants, which is not found in animals. 
