REV. MARTINEAU AND BELFAST ADDRESS 255 



the friendly soil, and this was the result of their interac- 

 tion. What is the acorn? what the earth? and what the 

 sun, without whose heat and light the tree could not be- 

 come a tree, however rich the soil, and however healthy 

 the seed? I answer for myself as before — all *' matter.** 

 And the heat and light which here play so potent a part 

 are acknowledged to be motions of matter. By taking 

 something much lower down in the vegetable kingdom 

 than the oak, we might approach much more nearly to 

 the case of crystallization already discussed; but this is 

 not now necessary. 



If, instead of conceding the suJB&ciency of matter here, 

 Mr. Martineau should fly to the hypothesis of a vegetative 

 soul, all the questions before asked in relation to the 

 snow-star become pertinent. I would invite him to go 

 over them one by one, and consider what replies he will 

 make to them. He may retort by asking me, *'Who in- 

 fused the principle of life into the tree?" I say, in an- 

 swer, that our present question is not this, but another — 

 not who made the tree, but what is it? Is there anything 

 besides matter in the tree? If so, what, and where? Mr. 

 Martineau may have begun by this time to discern that it 

 is not ''picturesqueness," but cold precision, that my Vor- 

 stellungs-fahigkeit demands. How, I would ask, is this 

 vegetative soul to be presented to the mind ? where did it 

 flourish before the tree grew? and what will become of 

 it when the tree is sawn into planks, or consumed in fire ? 



Possibly Mr. Martineau may consider the assumption of 

 this soul to be as untenable and as useless as I do. But 

 then if the power to build a tree be conceded to pure mat- 

 ter, what an amazing expansion of our notions of the "po- 

 tency of matter" is implied in the concession! Think of 



