in other beings, to attribute them, in this instance, to mere mechanism, actuated solely by external impulse, is to deviate from the soundest rule of philosophising, which directs us not to multiply causes, when the effects appear to be the same. Neither will the laws of electricity better solve the phenomena of this animated vegetable for its leaves are equally affected by the contact of electric and non-electric bodies; show no change in their sensibility, whether the atmosphere be dry or moist; and instantly close when the vapour of volatile alkali or the fumes of burning sulphur are applied to them. The powers of chemical stimuli to produce contractions in the fibres of this plant, may perhaps lead some philosophers to refer them to the vis insita, or irritability, which they assign to certain parts of organised matter, totally distinct from, and independent of, any sentient energy. But the hypothesis is evidently a solecism, and refutes itself. For the presence of irritability can only be proved by the experience of irritations, and the idea of irritation involves in it that of feeling.'

Speculations on the Perceptive Power of Vegetables. By Thomas Percival, M.D., F.R.S. Read February 18, 1784. Vol. ii. p. 114.

'Vegetables bear so near a similitude to animals in their structure, that botanists have derived from anatomy and physiology almost all the terms employed in the description of them.

'A tree or shrub, they inform us, consists of a cuticle, cutis, and cellular membrane, of vessels variously disposed, and adapted to the transmission of different fluids; and of a ligneous, or bony substance, covering and defending a pith

or marrow. Such organisation evidently belongs not to inanimate matter; and when we observe in vegetables, that it is connected with, or instrumental to the powers of growth, of self-preservation, of motion, and of seminal increase, we cannot hesitate to ascribe to them a living principle. And by admitting this attribute, we advance a step higher in the analogy we are pursuing,

'For the idea of life naturally implies some degree of perceptivity; and wherever perception resides, a greater or less capacity for enjoyment seems to be its necessary adjunct. Indefinite and low, therefore, as this capacity may be, in each single herb or tree, yet, when we consider the amazing extent of the vegetable kingdom, "from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop upon the wall," the aggregate of happiness, produced by it, will be found to exceed our most enlarged conceptions. It is prejudice only which restrains or suppresses the delightful emotions resulting from the belief of such a diffusion of good. And, because the framers of systems have invented arrangements and divisions of the works of God, to aid the mind in the pursuits of science, we implicitly admit as reality what is merely artificial; and adopt distinctions, without proof of any essential difference.'

Let us compare the latest conclusions on this subject by the man who of all others seems fitted best to give an opinion. In his concluding remarks (see 'The Power of Movement in Plants,' by Charles Darwin, LL.D., F.R.S., assisted by Francis Darwin), pp. 571-573, he says:

'Finally, it is impossible not to be struck with the resemblance between the foregoing movements of plants and many of the actions performed unconsciously by the

lower animals. With plants an astonishingly small stimulus suffices; and even with allied plants one may be highly sensitive to the slightest continued pressure, and another highly sensitive to a slight momentary touch. The habit of moving at certain periods is inherited both by plants and animals; and several other points of similitude have been specified. But the most striking resemblance is the localisation of their sensitiveness, and the transmission of an influence from the excited part to another which consequently moves. Yet plants do not of course possess nerves or a central nervous system; and we may infer that with animals such structures serve only for the more perfect transmission of impressions, and for the more complete intercommunication of the several parts.'

But as if to approach more nearly the feelings of Dr. Percival, he says at the end: 'It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus endowed, and having the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals ; the brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense-organs, and directing the several movements.'

After all, and even after reading Darwin's book on the motion of plants, we cannot be held to be nearer than Wordsworth, who says in 'Lines written in Early Spring':

Through primrose tufts in that sweet bower,

The periwinkle trails its wreaths;

And 'tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

GRADATION IN MAN AND ANIMALS.

Few people would expect the doctrine of progress in creation to have any representatives in the early Manchester Society, but this is chiefly because it seems so little known how far the world had advanced in the idea, and how many persons allowed it to pass through their minds. Dr. Charles White (we call him Dr., although not M.D.) had carefully thought of the remarkable smallness of the steps by which nature advances from the lowest forms up to the highest, and also the similar character of the advances in man himself. His opinions are to be found in a broad but thin quarto volume published in London in 1799; they had been given previously in a series of papers to the Literary and Philosophical Society. Their publication was not refused by the society, but he himself seems to have thought that it would entail too great an expense on that young institution. The volume is entitled 'An Account of the regular Gradation in Man and in different Animals. and Vegetables, &c., from the Former to the Latter.' A plate shows these gradations in man and animals from birds to the highest human type. Mr. White had studied Camper's Facial Angle Theory,' but had made great advances upon him. He had studied Bonnet, and has given the gradation of animals as shown by him from man to earth and to fire, and even 'a more subtile element,' and he had read Lord Monboddo's writings. He is not willing to go with that very clear-headed advocate of evolution, even to the limited extent attempted to be proved by him. Lord Monboddo does not demand belief in the evolution of man from an animal lower than the ourang-outang, and to

make that more easily believed he had exalted that animal. much more than modern inquiry justifies; still he himself thinks that it may be necessary to go far back, and an evolutionist he is to an extent most decided. The mode in which language and thought are evolved is reasoned out in a manner which must surprise many who rush to show their ideas of development in various departments, calling it Darwinianism, and not distinguishing that from evolution; Lord Monboddo does his part coolly, slowly, and deliberately, like a man who did not expect to be believed soon.

Gradation in animals Dr. White saw clearly, but he refused to believe in development from species to species, and distinctly stigmatised Lord Monboddo's ideas as out of the pale of reason, as so many have done after him. It could not be expected that reasoning such as Darwin's should be ripened last century when vegetable and animal anatomy were so little advanced; but reasoning with the instruments at hand was clear in the mind of Monboddo; it was no mere sentence or clause of a sentence that he gave to the public, but a full-grown system up to a certain point. He begins with development of thought, and proceeds to his main point, development of language. It is difficult to imagine that a similar series of thoughts should have grown in society without giving Lord Monboddo credit or discredit for his part.

Dr. White proceeded more on that method of reasoning which may be called scientific in opposition to philosophic so far as this, that he did not go beyond that which he saw before him. This by some men is held to be the true scientific method, and it is enough for a large class of such for example as have a short vision, a useful class of men,

L