REV. JAMES MARTINEAU AND BELFAST ADDRESS. 243 



asking me, ' Who infused tbe principle of life into the 

 tree ? ' I say, in answer, that our present question is 

 not this, but another not who made the tree, but 

 what is it ? Is there anything besides matter in the 

 , tree ? If so, what, and where ? Mr. Martineau may 

 have begun by this time to discern that it is not 

 ' picturesqueness,' but cold precision, that my Vorstel- 

 lungs-fahigkeit demands. How, I would ask, is this 

 vegetative soul to be presented to the mind? where 

 did it flourish before the tree grew ? and what will 

 become of it when the tree is sawn into planks, or 

 consumed in fire ? 



Possibly Mr. Martineau may consider the assumption 

 of this soul to be as untenable and as useless as I do. 

 But then if the power to build a tree be conceded to 

 pure matter, what an amazing expansion of our notions 

 of the * potency of matter ' is implied in the concession ! 

 Think of the acorn, of the earth, and of the solar light 

 and heat was ever such necromancy dreamt of as the 

 production of that massive trunk, those swaying boughs 

 and whispering leaves, from the interaction of these 

 three factors ? In this interaction, moreover, consists 

 what we call life. It will be seen that I am not in the 

 least insensible to the wonder of the tree ; nay, I should 

 not be surprised if, in the presence of this wonder, I 

 feel more perplexed and overwhelmed than Mr. Mar- 

 tineau himself. 



Consider it for a moment. There is an experiment, 

 first made by Wheatstone, where the music of a piano 

 is transferred from its sound-board, through a thin 

 wooden rod, across several silent rooms in succession, 

 and poured out at a distance from the instrument. The 

 strings of the piano vibrate, not singly, but ten at a 

 time. Every string subdivides, yielding not one note, 



