488 Life and Immortality. 



ideas to the lower animals, there is evidence that they possess 

 a spirit which is able to communicate with the spirit of man. 

 When a man gives an order to his dog, and is obeyed, there 

 is proof that both possess spirits, similar in quality, though 

 differing in degree. We know that to give an order to a 

 plant would be useless and absurd, because the plant has not 

 the spirit that can respond to the spirit of the man in the 

 same manner that a dog's or a horse's spirit can, but the 

 inability so to respond does not prove that the plant is 

 devoid of a spirit. That the spirit of the plant does respond 

 to the spirit of the man, when it adapts itself to the condi- 

 tions which the spirit of the man has imposed upon it, there 

 can be no question, or the many hundred plants which have 

 been reclaimed from a state of wildness by a judicious and 

 careful management upon the part of man would have been 

 among the impossibilities of modern civilization. The spirit 

 of man must have entered into the spirit of the plant, and held 

 communion therewith, or the world to-day would not have 

 been blessed with its manifold cereals, fruits and vegetables, 

 all of which have been rendered possible for use by the spirit 

 of man entering into an understanding with the nature, wants 

 and peculiar dispositions of the plants about him. No less are 

 plants living exponents of Divine Ideas than worms, insects, 

 beasts and men are, and as such living exponents, they are as 

 much needed in the future existence, at least such as are fitted 

 to continue in the spirit-world the work begun in the world of 

 matter, as are the higher forms of animal beings. As plants go a 

 great ways towards making this earth-life a paradise of beauty 

 and delight, and have ever been associated through the ages 

 with animal life, each of the two great kingdoms of life from 

 simple beginnings attaining to higher and still higher devel- 

 opment up to the present period the Era of Mind it cannot 

 be possible that the two will have become suddenly divorced 

 when the temporal or earth-life is about to pass into the 

 eternal or spirit-life. Heaven would not be Heaven without 

 the plants that we have cultured, and tended, and admired. 



