50 LIFE OF A TREE. 
to its encouraging voice when it was first heard, 
has now become an elegant young tree, adorned 
on every branch with the finest raiment, and of 
the most pleasing colours. 
It is easy to stand by, and watch these pro- 
cesses as they gradually develope themselves ; and 
a mere child can trace them from first to last, 
as far as they are visible to the eye. But the 
greatest philosopher cannot answer the inquiry, 
—Why do they take place? or explain how 
it is that the returning Spring re-awakens the 
slumbering tree. This is because we are igno- 
rant of what vegetable life really is. And though 
chemistry can tell us much about its different 
phenomena, and though the microscope may 
actually shew us what takes place, we are still 
as much in the dark as ever as to the power 
which sets them all in motion. Let not the reader 
suppose it is merely the returning warmth of air, 
and the re-softening of the frozen soil, that are 
alone necessary to recall the plant to life. There 
is something more than this in the case; and 
what this is, is yet hidden from our view. If a 
plant were a mere machine, or if indeed it were 
simply a beautiful form of chemical apparatus, it 
