170 Bibliography. 



exist little doubt that our home-grown article might compete advan- 

 tageously with the foreign one, especially in the event of a war with 

 China, or other interruption of our maritime intercourse with the 

 East. Whatever be the tenor of future public affairs, the cultivation 

 of the tea-plant should, under every circumstance, be carefully essayed 

 in France ; a fair trial should be given to it, and as it could not be 

 prejudicial to other agricultural interests, requiring such a locality as 

 is little adapted to other productions, I am the more disposed to think 

 that it merits the encouragement and favor of government." 



Mr. Guillemin's attention was also directed to the cultivation of 

 coffee in Brazil, but no details are given» 



S. The Spiritual Life of Plants — We extract the following from 

 Meyen's Report on the Progress of Vegetable Philosophy, for the 

 year 1837, (published late in 1838,) as translated by Mr. Francis. It 

 affords a good idea of that tendency to transcendentalism which thor- 

 oughly pervades the German mind, and has found its way into physi- 

 cal as well as psychological science, 



" M. V. Martius* has published his views on the soul of plants, with 

 which I may commence the present year's report. It appears, observes 

 M. V. Martius, as if natural philosophers were in general not inclined 

 to admit, in the essence of the plant, these two spheres, body and 

 soul, as if they would concede a soul only to animals and man. It is 

 usual to regard as the essential predicate of the soul, perception such 

 as it appears in animal life ; and, as in the vegetable kingdom, we are 

 acquainted with very few phenomena which admit of our concluding 

 upon a power of perception in plants, they have been declared not to 

 possess a soul. Von Martius points out, that even animal forms sink 

 so low in the scale of organization, that all the characteristics of ani- 

 mal life disappear in them ; on the other hand, indications of vegeta- 

 ble life display themselves ; whilst in the more highly developed vege- 

 table forms, phenomena occur which belong to animal life, such, for 

 instance, as the manifold various motions vvhich have been observed 

 in plants : in fact, that animal life and vegetable life appear in no way 

 to be so decidedly separated from each other, and for that reason, 

 therefore, a soul cannot be admitted in animals alone, and denied to 

 vegetables. Even the predominant growth and the propagation of 

 plants appear to indicate that they are not confined to the circle of 

 rigid necessity ; and we must recognize in them a kind of predeter- 

 mination, a tendency to the ideal, consequently a higher vital princi- 



* Reden und Beitiage ilber Gegensttlnde aus dem Gebiete der Nalurforschung, 

 StuUgard und Tubingen, 1838. 



