LEAF AND TENDRIL 



tozoon. When two or more cells unite to form a 

 metazoon, it finds a higher and more complex form 

 of intelligence. In the brain of man it finds a confra- 

 ternity of millions of simple cells, each with a life and 

 intelligence of its own, but when united and coop- 

 erating, the intelligence of all fooled, as it were, we 

 have the mind and personality of man as the result. 

 This fact leaves no room for the notion that the 

 mind or soul is an entity apart from the organ which 

 it uses. It seems, on the contrary, in some myste- 

 rious way to be the result of the multicellular life 

 of the nervous system. Thus we do not banish the 

 mystery of the soul, we only bring it nearer home. 

 We disprove a fable, and are then confounded by 

 the fact that lurks under it. And this proves true in 

 all attempts at ultimate explanations of the pheno- 

 mena of this world. 



It seems as if we saw the hint of prophecy of the 

 vegetable in the mineral — in this growth of crys- 

 tals, in these arborescent forms of the frost on the 

 pane or on the flagging-stones. One may see most 

 wonderful tree and fern forms upon the pavement, 

 with clean open spaces between them, as much so 

 as in a wood, an endless variety of them. A French 

 chemist has lately produced by inorganic com- 

 pounds the growth of something like a plant with 

 roots, stem, branches, leaves, buds — a mineral 

 plant, as if the type of the plant already existed 

 in the soil. Yes, the inorganic is dreaming of the 

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