Vegetal Causes. 173 



days but dust or inorganic elements, and to-morrow 

 and succeeding days shall again return to dust and 

 inorganic elements ; for without such origin in and 

 return to the outer cycle of inorganic elements, the 

 inner cycle of organic matter and life would be im- 

 possible. The constituents of a seed no more cycle 

 onwards and then back again to a seed than a dinner 

 returns to the kitchen to be re-cooked. 



As a rule, men thoughtlessly accord to seed energy 

 only one outlet, growth and reproduction ; but few 

 notions are more fallacious, for its vital phases consti- 

 tute only one of numerous vents of force. For 

 instance : — 



(1) Throw a seed into the fire and it will not grow 

 but burn. Instead of the environing conditions con- 

 ducing to addition or growth, the seed is itself sub- 

 tracted, molecularly split up, and dissipated. In burn- 

 ing, the seed truly manifests energy, for its combus- 

 tible constituents contribute to the motion of the fire ; 

 but its organisation as a seed avails it nothing in this 

 auto-da-fe; a chip of wood under similar circum- 

 stances would burn as well. The potentialities of a 

 seed are thus unbounded, its capacities magnificent, 

 but its destiny a peradventure. In the burning, its 

 constituents are neither lost in substance nor annihi- 

 lated in energy, but they battle no more to produce a 

 plant ; and yet in the cycle of their eternal indestruc- 

 tibility some of those self-same atoms may yet meet 

 together again within the integument of a wheat 

 seed. 



