ever as the vegetable soul acts according to its nature forma- 

 tively, plastically, one might say that it is situated in the 

 more highly organized plants principally in the node, in which 

 the vegetable powers slumber. 



This latter opinion might however be disputed,, as might ge- 

 nerally the entire current doctrine of the composition of plants 

 of internodes, on which subject we shall subsequently have 

 occasion to speak more in detail. With respect to the rest 

 I agree perfectly with M. von Martius ; nay, it is to me incon- 

 ceivable how all those phenomena of the vita sensitiva of 

 plants can be thought to be explained by the indefinite expres- 

 sion of irritability. 



Von Martius next enumerates the other manifold processes 

 which the vegetable soul has to superintend when the plant is 

 propagating by sexual intercourse, and concludes these obser- 

 vations with the following words : " Among intricate percep- 

 tions and ideas, a dark sensibility and consciousness, a sym- 

 pathy, a stimulus, an increase of this to affection, probably 

 also a kind of memory in the repetition of certain physical 

 actions ; all this we may deduce from the various habits of 

 plants, if we compare them with analogous relations in animal 

 life. We are not however able to trace in them a higher sense, 

 understanding, or free will/* 



With the preceding is immediately connected a memoir by 

 M. v. Martius*, which treats of the immortality of plants. 

 The idea of the immortality of plants is the next step to the 

 proof of the existence of a vegetable soul; but M. v. Martius 

 himself observes in the introduction, that it is true that many 

 scientific men, to whom the power of comprehending the tran- 

 scendental has been imparted in a lower degree, will regard the 

 consideration of such a subject as a digression ; he however 

 believes that the greater part of mankind are so organized, 

 that they will adopt conclusions, and acquiesce in conse- 

 quences, which rise above the \vorld of sensible contempla- 

 tions and perceptions into the higher world of the spirit. The 

 conviction of the immortality of plants can however in no 

 case be deduced from any proof derived from the nature of 

 plants, but it must be peculiarly the conception of the indi- 

 vidual mind. 



L. e. p. 261286. 



