CHAPTER XIV 
THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS 
“T swear I think now that everything, without ex- 
ception, has an immortal soul! 
The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds 
of the sea have! the animals! 
I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!” 
—W alt W hitman 
AURICE MAETERLINCK, in one of his de- 
lightful essays, pays a remarkable tribute 
to the spiritual powers of plants. 
“Though there be plants and flowers that are 
awkward or unlovely,” he says, “there is none 
that is wholly devoid of wisdom and ingenuity. 
All exert themselves to accomplish their work, 
all have the magnificent ambition to overrun 
and conquer the surface of the globe by end- 
lessly multiplying the form of existence which 
they represent. To attain this object, they have, 
because of the law which chains them to the 
soil, to overcome difficulties much greater than 
those opposed to the increase of animals... . 
If we had applied to the removal of the various 
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