[ 132 ] 



ment ; if we cut a notch in our flesh the immediate curative process 

 was followed by a formation of new flesh which, under favourable 

 circumstances, continued till the notch had entirely disappeai-ed. 

 "We could not, it was true, in our own complicated organism, grow 

 a new leg or arm ; but the process, as far as it went, was towards 

 such restoration, and in a lower sphere of animal life, we did 

 actually find snails reproducing their eyes, Crustacea their claws, 

 lizards their tails, and Holuthurise their simple digestive apparatus. 

 In the vegetable world, on the other hand, the notch, or broken 

 limb, retained its new shape, and simply covered the disfigurement 

 with bark. 



The efforts which Nature made to repair the functional loss 

 shewed this difference even more decisively. A plant or tree must, 

 for its necessary sustenance, spread a certain area of leaf surface 

 to the atmosphere — and when a branch was removed the loss must 

 be repaired, or the tree would die. How was the deficiency to be 

 made good ? A plant stood much in the position of a gambler who 

 had so many cards or counters to dispose of, and who could withhold 

 them, or apply them in different manners, but coukl not play them 

 twice. Every flowering plant was compelled by the mysterious law 

 of its nature to develop its buds in a spiral, according to an 

 unchanging arrangement. Of these buds it might make leaves, 

 tendrils, thorns, branches, stamens, carpels, petals, or bracts, 

 as occasion required. It might develop a bud almost ad 

 infinitum, might change stamens into petals, or spines into 

 tendrils, or might allow it to remain a bud, but it could 

 not play its card twice — a bud once destroyed could never 

 be replaced. Hence, to repair the loss of the amputated 

 branch, another bud which would otherwise have remained unde- 

 veloped must take the duty upon itself, and supply the functions of 

 its deceased brother. It was of this peculiarity that gardenei's 

 took advantage, when, by pruning or nipping off buds, they compelled 

 trees to assume a different shape, or to push forth lower branches 

 at the expense of the upper ones. Still, there was, perhaps, no 

 evidence of " vitality," for we could regard the diversion of the sap 

 into the only available channel as a mere mechanical result of the 

 general law of cell development. But, in the selection of the bud 

 which was to sprout, a very marked instance of what might be 

 called " plant instinct " was shown. Every plant was a caref uUy 



