LINES OF COMMUNICATION AND FORCE 



127 



Nature can clearly achieve the same results by various means. 



It is extremely difficult and exceedingly dangerous to attempt to define the properties and powers of living 

 matter. "We certainly cannot dogmatically affirm that all living things devoid of a visible nervous system and 

 muscles are incapable of feeling and moving. The fact that living things devoid of muscles do move, and to 

 definite ends, should go far to prove that a nervous system in a visible form is not necessary to sensation and 

 voluntary motion. 



The operations of nature are mysterious and often inscrutable. That she can produce similar results by what 



Flu. 26. 



FiQ. 28. 



Fm. %5.-~Acacia farnesiana. A. Leaf during day. B. The same at night (after Darwin). 



Fig. 26. — Branch and leaves of sensitive plant (Mimosa pudica), showing the petiole in its erect state (a) and in its depressed state 

 (d) ; also the leaflets closed (c) and the leaflets expanded (I). During darkness the leaf stalks hang down, and the leaflets are closed, 

 while the reverse is the case during light (after Balfour). 



Fig. 27. — Leaves of Dionsea muscipula, called Venus's fly-trap, showing the expanded blade of the leaf (a) with three irritable 

 hairs on each division of the lamina. These hairs, when touched, cause the closure (b, c) of the two halves of the lamina or blade of the 

 leaf (after Balfour). 



Fig. 28. — Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) ; grows on poor bog land and lives largely on insects caught by its leaves. The leaves are 

 round-shaped, and covered with 200 or more highly sensitive hairs or tentacles. Each liair secretes a pvire viscid fluid, which clogs the 

 feet and wings of the insects when they alight on it, the hairs bending down upon their victims and fixing them at or near the centre 

 of the leaf, where they are digested (Century Dictionary). 



appear to us dissimilar methods and means is abundantly proved by this. Electricity can be manufactured by 

 various Hving animals from organised materials, and it can be produced by water or other power from inorganic 

 materials by means of friction, &c. It is also produced, under certain conditions of the atmosphere, as a natural 

 force. However produced, electricity is one and the same, The electrical cycle, if I may so designate it, brings us 



