462 CHARACTER OF VEGETABLE VITALITY. CHAP. XI. 



SECTION HI. 



Sensation. 



FROM the facts adduced in the preceding sections 

 it is evident that plants are endowed with a capacity 

 of being acted upon by the application of stimuli, 

 whether natural or artificial, indicating the existence 

 of a vital principle, and forming one of the most 

 prominent features of it scharacter. But besides this 

 obvious and acknowledged property, it has been 

 thought by some phytologists that plants are en- 

 dowed also with a species of sensation. 



As ascrib- The detail of the arguments adduced in support 

 plants by of this opinion is to be met with in a paper written 

 *al and Sir by Dr. Percival, and published, as I believe, in the 

 Smith second volume of the Manchester Transactions, 

 though I have never had an opportunity of consult- 

 ing it ; but as the opinion has been also adopted by 

 Sir J. E. Smith and advocated with some degree of 

 zeal, it is to be presumed he has selected and exhi- 

 bited the most substantial arguments which the case 

 affords, either in his Lectures or Introduction. And 

 yet it cannot be said that he advances his arguments 

 with any great degree of confidence, as he seems 

 rather to hope that the doctrine may be true, than 

 to think he has proved it to be so. But he regards 

 On the the irritability of the Sensitive Plant and others, 

 phenome- tne phenomenon of the fecundation of the Valis- 

 ncr ' ia > together with that of the sleep of plants, as 



