ORGANIC DKVELOPEMENT. 541 



lopement is the appearance of the part called the 

 phnmda, which is a collection of feathery fibres, 

 bursting from the enveloping capsule of the germ, 

 and which, whatever may have been its original 

 position, proceeds immediately to extend itself 

 vertically ; while, at the same time, slender fila- 

 ments, or radicles, shoot out below to form the roots. 

 Thus early are means provided for the absorption 

 and the aeration of the nutrient matter, which is 

 to constitute the materials for the subsequent 

 growth of the plant, and for the support and pro- 

 tection of the organs by which these processes are 

 to be carried on.* But animal vitality, being 

 designed to minister to a higher order of endow- 

 ments, is placed in subordination to a class of 

 functions, of which there exists no trace in vege- 

 tables, namely, those of the nervous system. By 

 attentively watching the earliest dawn of organic 

 formation, in the transparent gelatinous molecule, 

 for example, which, with its three investing pelli- 

 cles, constitutes the embryo of a bird, (for the eggs 



* Payen and Persoz have lately discovered that during the germi- 

 nation of seeds, a vegetable principle hitherto unknown, and which 

 they have termed Diastase, is formed. When dry, it has the 

 appearance of a white tasteless powder, incapable of crystallization, 

 insoluble in pure alcohol, but dissolving in water, and also in 

 diluted alcohol : the solution gives no precipitate on the addition of 

 subacetate of lead. It has no chemical action on gum, vegetable 

 albumen, inuline, lignin, or, indeed, any of the vegetable proximate 

 principles, with the sole exception of fecula, on which it exerts a 

 remarkable solvent power, and which by this combination is 

 gradually converted into sugar. In effecting this chanfje, the 

 operation of diastase is vastly more energetic than that of sidphuric 

 acid, which, it has long been known, produces a similar conversion 

 into sugar, not only of starch, but also of each of the four vegetable 



