THE 



PHILOSOPHY OF VITAL MOTIOJN. 



CHAPTER I. 



PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS RESPECTING 

 VITAL MOTION. 



In spring the seed of the sensitive plant becomes the 

 seat of active life, and the sapling emerges from the 

 shelter in which it had slept during the cold season ; 

 in summer the foliage is unfolded; in autumn the 

 verdure and freshness are lost; and in winter the 

 plant is bare and dead. At the return of spring the 

 buds receive new life and awake from their dormant 

 condition ; in summer the branches are reclothed with 

 leaves and blossoms; in autumn the vital energies 

 decline ; and in winter the plant is again reduced to 

 a naked and lifeless skeleton. Year by year these 

 phenomena succeed each other in the same order and 

 with the same regularity, so that the vitality would 

 seem to ebb and flow in direct relation to the varying 

 intensity of the sunbeams. At daybreak, also, the 



