204 Education through Nature 



of what we call mental processes, and hence to con- 

 clude that a rudimentary mind exists even in the cell. 



Evidently such a primitive mind revealing itself 

 as a purposeful adaptation to environment, as when 

 an infusorian turns aside to avoid an object or selects 

 the food suited to its nutrition, retreats in the presence 

 of danger, or recognizes and embraces an organism 

 of its own kind, is as much a function of the proto- 

 plasm of the cell as are nutrition and motion. The 

 normal manifestation of this primitive mind is co- 

 ordinated with the normal discharge of the other 

 functions of the cell. Spontaneity ceases when dis- 

 turbed nutrition or other injurious influences have 

 caused the vital processes to be arrested, from which 

 we infer the close connection between what we call 

 life and what we call mind. The two coexist in a 

 very elementary way in the germ, and consequently 

 have no absolute beginning, but are transmitted with 

 the protoplasm from one generation to the next. 



III. The Principal Facts in the History of a Flower- 

 ing Plant. 



Within the little seed there is a tiny plant called 

 the embryo. This is composed of a great number 

 of cells arranged into a caulicle, two cotyledons, 

 and a plumule. The seed has been covered with a 

 thin inner coat and a thick, tough, and impervious 

 outer coat or testa, which have protected the embryo 

 from injury and retained some of its moisture. The 

 embryo, though alive, has remained dormant, asleep, 

 for several years, perhaps (time varies with different 

 seeds from three to perhaps forty years), without 

 suffering serious injury. 



The cotyledons are large in the bean because of a 

 considerable quantity of starch which has been depos- 

 ited there at the time when the embryo was formed. 



