112 



PROSERPINA. 



is given to the whole insect tribe, because they are farthei 

 jointed almost into sections : it is easily remembered, also, 

 that the projecting joint means strength and elasticity in the 

 creature, and that all its limbs are useful to it, and cannot 

 conveniently be parted with ; and that the incised, sectional, 

 or insectile joint means more or less weakness,* 

 and necklace-like laxity or license in the creature's 

 make ; and an ignoble power of shaking off its 

 legs or arms on occasion, coupled also with modes 

 of growth involving occasionally quite astonishing 

 transformations, and beginnings of new life under 

 new circumstances ; so that, until very lately, no 

 mortal knew what a crab was like in its youth, the 

 very existence of the creature, as well as its legs, 

 being jointed, as it were, and made in separate 

 pieces with the narrowest possible thread of con- 

 nection between them ; and its principal, or 

 stomachic, period of life, connected with its senti- 

 mental period by as thin a thread as a wasp's 

 stomach is with its thorax. 



7. Now in plants, as in animals, there are just 

 the same opposed aspects of joint, with this special- 

 ty of difference in function, that the animal's limb 

 bends at the joints, but the vegetable limb stiffens. 

 And when the articulation projects, as in the joint 

 of a cane, it means not only that the strength of 

 the plant is well canied through the junction, but 

 is carried farther and more safely than it could be 

 without it : a cane is stronger, and can stand higher 

 than it could otherwise, because of its joints. Also, 

 this structure implies that the plant has a will of 

 its own, and a position which on the whole it will keep, how- 

 ever it may now and then be bent out of it ; and that it has a 

 continual battle, of a healthy and humanlike kind, to wage with 

 surrounding elements. 



* Not always in muscular power ; but the framework 011 which strong 

 muscles are to act, as that of an insect's wing, or its jaw, is never in- 

 sectile. 



FIG. 22. 



