"No movement," says the Stagirite,
"proceeds from the vegetable spirit, because plants are buried in a still
sleep, from which nothing can arouse them" (Aristotle, 'De Generat.
Animal.', v. i., p. 778, Bekker); and again, "because plants have no desires
which incite them to spontaneous motion." (Arist., 'De Somno et Vigil'.,
cap. i., p. 455, Bekker.)
It must, however, be remembered, that the inorganic crust of the Earth
contains within it the same elements that enter into the structure of animal
and vegetable organs. A physical cosmography would therefore be incomplete
p 341
if it were to omit a consideration of these forces, and of the substances
which enter into solid and fluid combinations in organic tissues, under
conditiions which, from our ignorance of their actual nature, we designate
by the vague term of 'vital forces', and group into various systems in
accordance with more or less perfectly conceived analogies. The natural
tendency of the human mind involuntarily prompts us to follow the physical
phenomena of the Earth, through all their varied series, until we reach the
final stage of the morphological evolution of vegetable forms, and the
self-determining powers of motion in animal organisms. And it is by these
links that 'the geography of organic beings -- of plants and animals' -- is
connected with the delineation of the inorganic phenomena of our terrestrial
globe.
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