358 VEGETABLE INFLUENCES. 



it beneath his rude foot rather than quaff the draught 

 of wisdom which it secreted in its cell ; but the flower 

 still ministered to that mere sensualist, and in its 

 strange, tongueless manner, reproved his passions, and 

 kept him "a wiser and a better man/' than if it 

 had pleased God to have left the world without the 

 lovely primrose. 



The psychology of flowers has found many students 

 than whom not one read them more deeply than that 

 mild spirit who sang of the Sensitive Plant, and in 

 wondrous music foreshadowed his own melancholy 

 fate.* That martyr to sensibility, Keats, who longed to 

 feel the flowers growing above him, drew the strong 

 inspiration of his volant muse from those delicate 

 creations which exhibit the passage of inorganic matter 

 into life ; and other poets will have their sensibilities 

 awakened by the aesthetics of flowers, and find ;a tmirror 

 of truth in the crystal dew-drop which clings so lovingly 

 to the purple violet, and draws fresh .beauties from its 

 coloured petals. 



If we -examine carefiilly .all the conditions of .matter 

 which we have made the subject of our studies, we 

 cannot but perceive how gradual is the progress of the 

 involved action of the physical forces, as we advance 

 from the molecule the mere particle of matter up to 

 the organic combination. At first we detect only the 

 action -of cohesion in forming the rude mass ; then we 

 have the influence of the crystallogenic powers giving 

 a remarkable regularity to bodies ; we next discover the 

 influences of heat and electrical force in determining 

 condition, and of chemical action as controlled by them. 

 Yet, still we have a body without organization. Light 

 exerts its mysterious powers, and the same elements 

 assume -an organized form ; and, in addition to the 

 recognized agencies, we dimly perceive others ? on which 



* Percy Bysslie Shelley. 



