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HAVE PLANTS SENSATION ? 139 
it for a moment at rest? Neither night nor day, 
nor youth nor age, affects the movements, and 
they are only arrested by disease, cold, or death. 
This singular instance of plant-motion is quite 
without a parallel in the entire vegetable kingdom. 
These facts cannot be explained by any one. 
We know neither the mechanism of the move- 
ment, nor the exciting cause thereof. In animals 
there is a beautiful apparatus which can easily 
be understood, consisting of muscles, bones, and 
nerves, by means of which all the wondrous 
movements of the animal frame are readily effected; 
but no such, nor even similar apparatus, is to 
be found in vegetables. The microscope may one 
day tell us how they take place, but we fear it 
will be some time ere this is accomplished. 
Often, while pondering on such things as these, 
or when beholding the fresh luxuriance of a vege- 
table crowd after a new-falien shower,—a time 
when every power of life seems awakened, and, as 
one may say, we can ‘‘almostsee the plants grow,” 
has the thought arisen, do these beautiful beings 
enjoy anything like feeling: are they in any mea- 
sure sensible of what goes on around them, whether, 
for example, there is better food a little distance 
