ON THE ABEYANCE OF MEMORY. 165 



out the animal and vegetable kingdoms. This will be 

 readily admitted as regards animals ; as regards plants 

 it may be inferred from the fact that they generally 

 go on doing what they have been doing most lately, 

 though accustomed to make certain changes at certain 

 points in their existence. When the time comes for 

 these changes, they appear to know it, and either bud 

 forth into leaf, or shed their leaves, as the case may 

 be. If we keep a bulb in a paper bag it seems to re- 

 member having been a bulb before, until the time 

 comes for it to put forth roots and grow. Then, if we 

 supply it with earth and moisture, it seems to know 

 where it is, and to go on doing now whatever it did 

 when it was last planted ; but if w T e keep it in the 

 bag too long, it knows that it ought, according to its 

 last experience, to be treated differently, and shows 

 plain symptoms of uneasiness ; it is distracted by the 

 bag, which makes it remember its bulbhood, and also 

 by the want of earth and water, without which associa- 

 tions its memory of its previous growth cannot be duly 

 kindled. Its roots, therefore, which are most accus- 

 tomed to earth and water, do not grow ; but its leaves, 

 which do not require contact with these things to jog 

 their memory, make a more decided effort at develop- 

 ment — a fact which would seem to go strongly in 

 favour of the functional independence of the parts of 

 all but the very simplest living organisms, if, indeed, 

 more evidence were wanted in support of this. 



