240 FKAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



speaks so wittily of atomic polarity. In fact, with- 

 out this notion of polarity this ' drawing ' and ' driv- 

 ing ' this attraction and repulsion, we stand as stupid- 

 ly dumb before the phenomena of Crystallisation as a 

 Bushman before the phenomena of the Solar System. 

 The genesis and growth of the notion I have endeav- 

 oured 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 Corunna. On the ground near the 

 tree little oaklets were successfully fighting for life 

 with the surrounding 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 mo- 

 tions of matter. By taking something much lower 

 down in the vegetable kingdom than the oak, we might 

 approach much more nearly to the case of crystallisa- 

 tion already discussed; but this is not now necessary. 



If, instead of conceding the sufficiency of matter 

 here, Mr. Martineau should fly to the hypothesis of a 

 vegetative soul, all the questions before asked in rela- 

 tion 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 ask- 

 ing 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 



