34 rKOSEEPINA. 



insects. It rather settles upon boughs than roots itself in 

 them ; half of its roots may wave in the air. 



11. What vital power is, men of science are not a step 

 nearer knowing than they were four thousand years ago. 

 They are, if anything, farther from knowing now than 

 then, in that they imagine themselves nearer. But they 

 know more about its limitations and manifestations than 

 they did. They have even arrived at something like a 

 proof that there is a fixed quantity of it flowing out of 

 things and into them. But, for the present, rest content 

 with the general and sure knowledge that, fixed or flow- 

 ing, measurable or immeasurable one with electricity or 

 heat or light, or quite distinct from any of them life is a 

 delightful, and its negative, death, a dreadful thing, to hu- 

 man creatures ; and that you can give or gather a certain 

 quantity of life into plants, animals, and yourself by wis- 

 dom and courage, and by their reverses can bring upon 

 them any quantity of death you please, which is a much 

 more serious point for you to consider than what life and 

 death are. 



12. Now, having got a quite clear idea of a root prop- 

 erly so called, we may observe what those storehouses, 

 refuges, and ruins are, which we find connected with 

 roots. The greater number of plants feed and grow at 

 the same time ; but there are some of them which like to 

 feed first and grow afterwards. For the first year, or, at 

 all events, the first period of their life, they gather 

 material for their future life out of the ground and out 



