236 DR. CARUS ON THE KINGDOMS OF NATURE, 



fixing itself upon a given spot; while, on the other hand, locomo- 

 tion is the characteristic of the animal kingdom. Por tliere is no 

 comparison between plants taking root, and the adhesion of some 

 animals, corals, and oysters, to the ground by means of their shells. 

 In the latter case there is not, as there is in that of the plant, an active 

 dynamical intrusion into the maternal bosom of the earth for the sake; 

 of nourishment and life, but a mere mechanical hold of the surface. 

 A fifth consequence is the more marked dependence of vegetable life 

 on the life of the earth. AVhether the vegetative organization awakes 

 and develops itself, or sleeps and dies, depends accordingly on the 

 position of the planet with respect to the sun and other heavenly 

 bodies, as well as on the peculiar development of the soil. Though, 

 these circumstances affect animal life also, it is not to be denied that 

 they do so in a far inferior degree, and that the progress of animal 

 organization imparts an independence of which the plant is utterly in- 

 capable. As the sixth and last consequence arising from the less perfect 

 unity of the plant, we are to consider not only the dualism already men- 

 tioned, but the pecvdiar nature of every bud ; and every internodium 

 may be considered as a whole in itself, or in some measure an indi- 

 vidual plant ; wherefore a bush or a tree is more properly compared 

 to an aggregate of animals (a coral bank) than to a single animal. 

 In this way we shall easily comprehend the various modes of propa- 

 gating plants, in which a bud (an eye) and the shoots that issue from 

 it renew the parent organism, and that which we see in the bud is exhi- 

 bited likcAvise as tubercles in the root or also (as in the genus Allium) 

 near the flower, or as the bulb, and always possessing tlie power of repro- 

 ducing the whole plant out of itself; nay the very seed is but an im- 

 proved and more perfectly compact picture of the bud. 



If we closely examine the structure and composition of plants, we find 

 that, like the organism of the earth itself, they contain solid, fluid, and 

 gaseous elementary particles. We see that in the plant, as well as in the 

 earth, the fluid contributes to the formation of the solid parts, and that 

 the finer and therefore more destructible organization of the plant is 

 composed of chemical elements, namely, the carbonic, hydrogen, and 

 oxygen gases. The transition of the fluids into solids, and consequently 

 the history of the formation of the proper body of the plant itself, is evi- 

 dent in its primary structure, that is, in its cellular tissue. If we call 

 to our recollection the history of the primitive formation of the rudi- 

 ments >f organic bodies in the green matter of Priestley, and see in 

 this the conditions of this formation, — whilst, under the influence of light 

 and gravitation, some particles of the original fluid attain the nature of in- 

 dividual beings, as Avell as a tendency to internal unity, and consequently 

 a globular form, — it becomes clear that this development cannot occur 

 without a separation of those particles from the rest, without an indi- 

 vidual limitation in form of a spherical surface ; so that the rudiment of 



