12 
cal sense, and have never employed it to express, 
what we conceived to be, either a mechanical or che- 
mical action. 
216. In this view of absorption, although water 
enters the seed at first, as we think, by simple imbibi- 
tion, yet there is no evidence that gaseous fluids can 
be absorbed and decomposed, in the manner which 
many eminent chemists have supposed : neither, as 
we have argued (17.), can this oxygen be held to 
gain admission by the operation of chemical affinity. 
The only probable reason, in favour of the absorp- 
tion of oxygen, was derived from the belief that 
more of that gas was lost than, could be found in the 
carbonic acid produced : but as the facts adduced 
(207. 8. 9.) seem to demonstrate the fallacy of the 
experiments on which this opinion was founded, the 
inference deduced from them can ncr longer be 
maintained. Even those, if such there be, who may 
still be disposed to deny the identity qf volume pre- 
served in the conversion of these gases, must, we 
think, admit the approximation to it to be extremely 
near ; and therefore, the portion of oxygen, supposed 
to enter the seed, must be so small as to be incom- 
petent to produce the effects which have been assign- 
ed to it. And to contend that the oxygen of the 
air enters the seed merely from certain effects which 
it is supposed to produce, is to invert the ordinary 
rules of philosophizing, which require that this alleged 
agent be shewn to be present in that body, before 
we venture to describe its operation. 
217. But Mr Acton endeavours to support an ab- 
sorption of oxygen in germination, from the results 
