THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 433 



essary to trace three magic circles round it with the point of 

 a sword, looking all the time towards the east, whilst one of 

 the assistants danced round about, uttering obscene words. 1 



The theories of credulous antiquity have been repro- 

 duced, and even exceeded, in our own day. Adanson, a 

 daring spirit, if ever there was one, was not satisfied, like 

 the Sicilian sophist, with endowing plants with a mere sen- 

 sitive soul ; he contended that each one must have several. 2 



Hedwig, a profound botanist; Bonnet, more an orator 

 than a really learned man ; and, most of all, Edward Smith, 

 allotted to plants exquisite sensibility, and even sensations 

 of pretty high character. 



1 The Mandragora, which was one of the most celebrated plants of antiquity 

 and the Middle Ages, was supposed to grow under gibbets, where it was manured 

 with the remains of those put to death. It was said that it could not be torn out 

 without danger. The credulous supporters of the cabala, in order to avoid all 

 accidents, taught their adepts to extract it from the ground by means of a dog 

 tied to the plant, and which, as the plant exerted all its malevolence over it, was 

 thus devoted to a certain death 



The charlatans of our superstitious ages gave the Mandragora a human form 

 before employing it in their sorceries. The idea that this plant naturally appears 

 under this form had procured for it the name of anthropomorphos among the an- 

 cients ; and it was so entirely considered as such by our superstitious ancestors 

 that in certain botanical works of the period of the Renaissance, and particularly 

 in the Grand Herbier en Franfais, we find sketches of the Mandragora plants, 

 faithful enough as regards the foliage and aspect, while their embellished roots 

 present a human figure, some representing a man, and others a woman. 



2 The following curious passage on this subject is found in Adanson's work: 

 " Every plant, although without sensation, being animated, possesses a soul, 



which is not sole nor fixed in any part, but equally spread through all, and divis- 

 ible, since every one of its integrant parts which participate in a common life 

 possesses in itself an isolated vitality, and because, when separated and detached 

 from them, it grows and fructifies, finally enjoying all the properties and faculties 

 which it possessed before its separation." 



