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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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scppty * the c 9 § € t ^ of the prgan i z i rig of nia ^ ejr . TJriere are distinctions bei \ y ; ee , n _ life and organization which w £ U for e \ er separate them . Organination alone has not ever assimilated
aiatter in contact with itself so as to repair any injuries it may have sustained : neither , alone ^ has U ever been capable of propag-Juing its species ; nor hv rest , or sleep , has it ever restortd its wasted energies to vigour . The , faculties may have been imitated
by organization , but never have such imitations been capable of hearing , seeing , snwslting , feeling or tasting , pinch less has organization been ever capable of thought or reason . Kvery animal can do some of these , if not
all , and on strong grounds it may be queried if living vegetation is not capable of some conscious enjoyments . J 3 ut , organization alone is a mere iDachine wholly void of all sensation . Organic causes alone never having produced life , hut life being through
the whole creation united with organic matter by a two-Told agency , it is but doing philosophic justice to the subject to state , that body and life being aborigine the union of two completely distinct principles , however ; closely united they may be , and however intimately blended so as to be apparently one , yet they , arc actually
two , and therefore when decomposed must necessarily again become two . Whether life is not material as well as the organized body , is not the present inquiry , but the inquiry is whether life , he it vyhat it may , is not wholly distinct from the bod y it animates . Notwithstanding the maxim of
jLinn ^ cus has been combated , it does not appear to me to have been overturned , but that the very arguments plought against it have established the tiutji of " Otivie vimim ex cvo , " and therefore in reasoning upon this subj . ect < it is of no imporiance whether our premises are taken from the 4 tnirrt&t or vegetable kingdom . My
first evidence to prove the principle I have Jaid down , that life arid organic poejv was ab rongine distinct , is the ^^ e rv ^ tjpo of j £ > e Graaf , the future p lant | V > rqied \ n the seed prior fo ' its leaving Vjeen touched by the pollen . S p ^ ajanzani likewise discovered in the Jordbm oqci the seed twenty days bean j &J" A t *>¦ ¦ . A lit I ' Jpre tf ^ e Jjjpwer \ y , a . s in full blossom : &L ij * at , tim , e t { xe powder of the anthers
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was visible , but g lewed fast to tfyeir summits ; th-e seeds were olf a gefejtinous substance and continued sa tc » r ten days after ihc blossom had fallen off : on the ! eleventli day the seed be ^*
came heart-shaped and attached by the basis to the pod , having at the apex a while point whose hollow contained a dro p of liquor in the cavity ; this cavity on the twvntv-fifth dav was
enlarged but still quite full of liquor , and a small seini-transparent yel ' owrsh body fixed by two ends to the sides-of the cavity ; in a month the seed was enlarged and changed from a heart to a kidney sh ; ipe , and this small bod y increased / gelatinous and less transparent , but without organization . On the fortieth day the cavity < rown
larger \ v ; is filled with the body , nnd covered with a thin membrane , which when taken off was a bright green divided into two lobes , and the small plantule which attached it to the lower part was visible . These facts prove thr , seeds to be formed prior to
fecundation , and that the effects of the action of the pollen is to penetrate , dissolve and stimulate every part , anij to give form and animation to the future plant . r l'he organic matter animated , and the animating principle which takes full possession of it , so as to atlapt the
organic formation to be its residence , are two distinct substances ; and that all nature acts by a similar process , and is attended with similar results , is evident from the pollen of tr \ e pinji causiug the polyanthus seed to produce on the polyanthus stalk a cluster of beautiful pinks . It is by acting upon this secret of nature that
our gardeners deck our parteire with lusus natures of flowers ; by it the songs of the mules of the goklfinch and canary bird enliven our rooms ; whilst hy it our farmers furnish our colonies with mules adapted to the purposes for which they arc wanted , sometimes with the vigour of the horse in the diminutive size of the
ass , or at others fit him in the size of the horse to labour with the patience of the ass . It is by attentively stuuAing this principle that our breed ers increase the flesh and diminish me bone of the cattle intended for our markets , and the time may corhe , in the progressiveness of trie human mind , when beauty of mind and body come to be preferred to fortune .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1817, page 211, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2463/page/19/
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