184 



LETTERS ON TREES, 



be but an extension and integral part of this mass ! 

 An entire being alive in all its parts, growing on such 

 a mass, and deriving from it at once nourishment and 

 support, this one can understand. But an entire 

 being alive only at its surface, and this living surface 

 the continuous extension and a constituent part of a 

 dead carcass, this it is very diflScult to understand. 



11. The second is, that the distinction insisted on 

 by Dr Carpenter as existing between the seed and 

 the bud, and of course between their respective pro- 

 duce, creates far greater difficulties than it can pos- 

 sibly obviate. It mystifies our simplest notions of 

 individual being and of personal identity and relation- 

 ship. It also invests with an unreal character — or 

 rather it divests of all reality of character many of 

 the noblest objects of the vegetable world, and casts 

 a doubt around all of whose origin from a seed we 

 have not the clearest evidence. Two stately Elms 

 might be growing side by side in the same park, each 

 as like the other as it is possible for two trees to be, 

 and both performing exactly ahke all the functions of 

 vegetable life, — and yet only one of them — and that 

 by reason of its origin from a seed, could be accounted 

 a real tree and a true individual ! The other, sprung 

 from a sucker, would be merely the continuous pro- 

 duct, and would still in fact be forming an integral 

 part of another tree, all of which, save this part, may 

 have long since passed away. 



