PART II. 



LECTURE VII. 



Importance of observing external objects. Vegetables consist of 

 two sets of organs. Of the root. The stem. 



THE exercises which constitute the principal part of our pre- 

 vious course of lectures, are chiefly designed to assist you in 

 practical botany. It is not expected that you are to be the . 

 passive receivers of instruction, but that you are to compare 

 with real objects, the descriptions which are presented ; by do- 

 ing this faithfully, you will find your minds gradually strength, 

 ened, and more competent to compare and judge in abstract 

 studies, where the subjects of investigation are in the mind on- 

 ly, and cannot, like the plants, be looked at with the eyes and 

 handled with the hands. 



All our thoughts, by means of the senses, are originally de- 

 rived from external objects. Suppose an infant to exist who 

 could neither hear, see, taste, smell, nor feel ; all the embryos 

 of thought and emotion might exist within it; it might have a 

 soul capable of as high attainments as are within the reach of 

 any created beings; but this soul, while thus imprisoned, could 

 gather rio ideas; the beauty of re fleeted light, constituting all the 

 variety of colouring ; the harmony of sounds, the fragrant odors 

 of flowers, the various flavors, which are derived from our 

 sense of taste, the ideas of soft, smooth, or hard ; all these ideas 

 must forever remain unknown to the soul confined to a body 

 having no means of communication with the world around it. 

 The soul, in its relation to external objects, may be compared 

 to the embryo plant, which, imprisoned within the seed, would 

 forever remain inert, were no means provided for its escape 

 from this confinement, and no communication opened between it 

 and the air, the light, and vivifying influence of the earth. 



Since our first ideas are derived from external nature is it 

 not a rational conclusion that we should add to this original 



Study of external objects strengthens the mind Abstract studies facilitated 

 by acquaintance with the natural sciences Our first ideas gained by the senses 

 Analogy between the soul and the embryo plant. 



