NOTICES OF BOOKS. 255 
“10. It is probable that the soul-life of plants is much more purely 
sensual than that of animals. Although animals want the reason- 
ing faculty and the consciousness of self, they have, nevertheless, 
some recollection of the past, and presentiment of the future. But the 
vegetable life probably exists exclusively in the present, participating 
at the same time in the universal animation; and instead of being less 
perfect, it d be, that the sensation in plants is more developed than 
in animals." 
The author thinks that this resumé comprises the requisite arguments 
for refuting the following objections, which might be urged against his 
th 
tient beings; 5thly, plants seem designed solely for human and animal 
purposes, for the service of animated nature, and cannnot have any 
proper soul or object of their own; 6th, in those lower animals which 
resemble plants, there are but equivocal indications of any $ oul, and 
therefore none can exist in the real plants; and 7thly, it is toponi 
to conceive a condition of soul still lower than that of animals.” 
“That the plant has not the means of attempting to escape from mis- 
chief, may seem to us very hard. But consider the case of the soldier 
who is doomed to stand against cannon, and to see his comrades killed 
man for man. How hard this! To feel the ball before it hits him, 
and more intensely, perhaps, than at the fatal stroke! Now, the corn 
knows nothing of the approach of the reaper, until at the instant it is 
cut down; just as is the case in regard to him, who it is the will of 
Providence should be removed by some sudden stroke, in the very 
midst of the engagements of life, and without one moment's presentiment 
of his death. This very unconsciousness constitutes, perhaps, one of the 
delightful features of the vegetable life, devoted as this is entirely to the 
present, and as a eompensation for the higher enjoyments of animal 
life. Is it to be supposed for one moment that the poor mouse suffers 
less under the playful but murderous claws of the cat, in its hun- 
