380 ELECTRICITY OE PLANTS. 



The question, whether plants possess sensation, 

 whether they have any disposition of parts at all 

 analogous to the nervous system of animals, has been 

 often put forward, but as yet the answers have been 

 unsatisfactory. The point is one well worthy all the 

 attention of the vegetable physiologist ; but regarding 

 plants as the link between the animal and the mineral 

 kingdom, looking upon phyto-chemistry, as- exhibited 

 by them,, as the means employed to produce those more 

 complex organizations which exist in animals, we 

 necessarily consider plants as mere natural machines 

 for effecting organic arrangements, and, as such, that 

 they cannot possess any nervous sensibility. Muscular 

 contraction may be represented in many of their marvel- 

 lous arrangements ; and any disturbance produced by 

 natural or artificial means would consequently effect a 

 change in the operations of those forces which combine 

 to produce vegetable life. Indeed, the experiments of 

 Carlo Matteucci, already referred to, prove that an 

 incision across a leaf, the fracture of a branch, or the 

 mere bruising of any part of the plant, interferes with 

 the exercise of that power which, under the operation of 

 luminous agency, decomposes carbonic acid, and effects 

 the assimilation of the other elements. 



To recapitulate. A plant is an organized creation ; it is 

 so in virtue of certain strange phyto-chemical operations > 

 which are rendered active by the solar influences 

 involved in the great phenomena of light, and by the 

 excitation of caloric force and electrical circulation. It 

 is a striking exemplification of the united action of 

 certain empyreal powers, which give rise to the com- 

 bination of inorganic principles under such forms that 

 they become capable of obeying the mysterious impulses 

 of fife. 



The poet has imaged the agency of external powers in 

 various shapes of spiritualized beauty. From the god- 

 dess Flora, and her attendant nymphs, to the romantic 

 enchantress who called up flowers by the light touch of 



