524 FRAGMENTS Of SCIENCE. 
polarity. In fact, without this notion of polarity this 
"drawing" and "driving" this attraction and repulsion, 
we stand as stupidly dumb before the phenomena of crys- 
tallization as a Bushman before the phenomena of the solar 
system. The genesis and growth of the notion I have en- 
deavored to make clear in my third Lecture on Light, 
and in the article on "Matter and Force" published in 
this volume. 
Our further course is here foreshadowed. A Sunday or 
two ago I stood under an oak planted by Sir John Moore, 
the hero of Oorunna. On the ground near the tree little 
oaklets were successfully fighting for life with the surround- 
ing vegetation. The acorns had dropped into the friendly 
soil, and this was the result of their interaction. What is 
the acorn? what the earth? and what the sun, without 
whose heat and light the tree could not become a tree, 
however rich the soil, and however healthy the seed? I 
answer for myself as before all " matter." And the 
heat and light which here play so potent a part are 
acknowledged to be motions of matter. By taking some- 
thing much lower down in the vegetable kingdom than 
the oak, we might approach much more nearly to the case 
of crystallization already discussed; but this is not now 
necessary. 
If, instead of conceding the sufficiency of matter here, 
Mr. Marti neau should fly to the hypothesis of a vegetative 
soul, all the questions before asked in relation to the snow- 
star become pertinent. I would invite him to go over them 
one by one, and consider what replies he will make to 
them. He may retort by asking me, " Who infused the 
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. Martinean may consider the assumption of 
this soul to be as untenable and as useless as I do. But 
