OF PLANTS. 
203 
trivance. It does not disprove the contrivance; it only re¬ 
moves it a little farther back. Who, to use our author’s 
own language, “adapted the objects?” Who gave such 
a quality to these connate parts, as to be susceptible of dif¬ 
ferent “ stimulation;” as to be “ excited ” each only by its 
own element, and precisely by that which the success of 
the vegetation requires? I say, “which the success of the 
vegetation requires:” for the toil of the husbandman would 
have been in vain; his laborious and expensive preparation 
of the ground in vain; if the event must, after all, depend 
upon the position in which the scattered seed was sown 
Not one seed out of a hundred would fall in a right di 
rection. 
Our second observation is upon a general property of 
climbing plants, which is strictly mechanical. In these 
plants, from each knot or joint, or as botanists call it, ax¬ 
illa, of the plant, issue, close to each other, two shoots; 
one bearing the flower and fruit; the other, drawn out into 
a wire, a long, tapering, spiral tendril, that twists itself 
round anything which lies within its reach. Considering, 
that in this class two purposes are to be provided for, (and 
together,) fructification and support, the fruitage of the 
plant, and the sustentation of the stalk, what means could 
be used more effectual, or, as I have said, more mechanical, 
than what this structure presents to our eyes? Why, or 
how, without a view to this double purpose, do two shoots, 
of such different and appropriate forms, spring from the 
same joint, from contiguous points of the same stalk? It 
never happens thus in robust plants, or in trees. “We 
see not, (says Ray,) so much as one tree, or shrub, or 
herb, that hath a firm and strong stem, and that is able to 
mount up and stand alone without assistance, furnished 
with these tendrils .” Make only so simple a comparison 
ing which, different philosophers have given such different opinions; some 
referring it to the nature of the sap, as De la Hire, others as Darwin, to 
the living powers of the plant, and the stimulus of air upon the leaves, 
and of moisture upon the roots. The effect is now shown to be connect¬ 
ed with mechanical causes; and there seems no other power in nature to 
which it can with propriety be referred but gravity, which acts universal¬ 
ly, and which must tend to dispose the parts to take a uniform direction. 
“ The direction of the radicles and germens (plumules) is such, that 
both are supplied with food, and acted upon by those external agents wnich 
are necessary for their developement and growth. The roots come in 
contact with the fluids in the ground; the leaves are exposed to light 
and air; and the same grand law which preserves the planets in their or¬ 
bits is thus essential to the functions of vegetable life.”—Davy’s El. Agr. 
Chem. ii. Ed. p. 32.— Paxton, 
