92 OSCILLATIONS OR VIBRATIONS 



grow, live, and feel."* These definitions, remarkable for their 

 "brevity and clearness, have never yet been surpassed. They 

 imply a profound knowledge of Nature, and are worthy the 

 revered memory of a man to whom the world must ever be 

 indebted. 



But we have shown THE CELL to be the "lowest and simplest 

 individual elementary organ'' employed by Nature in the con- 

 struction of the tree. Out of the cell springs forth organic life. 

 Each animal and plant begins with a cell, and all the organs of 

 the same are formed out of cells. Therefore, the increase in 

 the number of its cells, their individualization and association into 

 tissues, constitute the living building material out of which the 

 entire fabric of the tree is constructed ; and the tree is therefore 

 no stiff, unyielding form, but a living, elastic, and easily impres- 

 sible body, whose movements are, in fact, as fluctuating as 

 those of the mercurial column in the tube of a barometer. 



And, first of all, let us contemplate vegetative Nature in her 

 simpler forms. Let us study the life-history of one of those 

 lowly native annuals, besprinkled, as it were, in kindness, in the 

 Spring of the year, over the landscape, by that sublime PROVI- 

 DENCE WHO GUIDES ALL NATURE, ruling alike the movements 

 of atoms and the roll of worlds. From the first breaking forth 

 of life in the seed, there is continual motion and activity, a 

 regular cycle of leaves until growth culminates ; the plant then 

 flowers, arrives at the condition of a seed, and enters on 

 the stage of rest. The entire axis, and all its appendages, its 

 roots, leaves, and flowers have perished ; for into the seed the 

 exhausted vitality of the plant has retired. Then comes the 

 sleep of Winter, when forest tree and lowly flower alike repose, 

 till the onward march of Nature brings back to earth the heat and 

 light of Spring, reawakens the dormant life-energies in the seed, 

 which slowly commences the same instructive and ever deeply- 

 interesting life movements. 



In forest trees, or woody perennials, there is the same con- 

 tinual change from a state of rest to that of motion. As the tree 



* Lapides crescunt. Vegetabilia cresctmt et vivnnt. Animalia crescunt, 

 rirant, et sentiunt. PHILOSOPHIA BOTANICA, o Carlos Linnaus. 



