PLANT-LIFE IN GENERAL. 195 



I. PLANT-LIFE. 



Of the three kinds of Life-forms which are 

 represented on our globe, the Plant stands 

 in the most immediate connection with the 

 Earth. It is not yet separated in form from 

 its terrestrial mother, not yet weaned we may 

 say, but sucks sustenance directly from the 

 maternal bosom. We may deem it, therefore, 

 the infant in comparison with the Animal, 

 which is bodily separated from the Earth, 

 though it keeps returning to her at every 

 step. Still it has on the whole the power of 

 locomotion or change of place; it does not 

 cling to one spot like the Plant, but has a 

 limited range of spatial freedom. Thus we 

 can say that the Animal is a more free being 

 than the Plant, and consequently more near 

 to the goal of the Universe, if this goal be 

 freedom. Mother Earth, however, has her 

 own spatial movements, axial and orbital, and 

 carries along her two living families of chil- 

 dren, the vegetal and animal, on her breast 

 through her two revolutions. Such, however, 

 may be taken as the first fact of Plant-life : it 

 is not yet spatially free of its nurse, it is still 

 a suckling at the source of its existence and 

 remains so as long as it lives. We may note, 

 however, that there are some seeming ex- 



