SAGACITY AND MORALITY OF PLANTS. 



complex physical and chemical character. Whether 

 life be the cause or the product, the process is none 

 the less wonderful. Before the revelations which the 



microscope gives us of 

 the inner life of the 

 minutest plants, the 

 boldest researches of 

 science stand checked. 

 What is above and 

 beyond these micro- 

 scopic protoplasmic 

 streams ? We stand 

 on the verge of the 

 unknown even when beholding the living changes 

 taking place within the glassy frustule of a diatom ! 



"And what if all of animated Nature 

 Be but organic harps, divinely framed, 

 And trembling into thought, as o'er them sweeps 

 Plastic and vast, one universal breeze ; 

 At once the soul of each and God of all ? " 



Fig. I. — Cell of Tradescantia, drawn at 

 intervals, and showing changes in the con- 

 tained protoplasm. 



