ented to the mind? where did it flourish before the
tree grew? and what will become of it when the tree is sawn into
planks, or consumed in fire?

Possibly Mr. Martineau may consider the assumption of this soul to be
as untenable and as useless as I do. But then if the power to build a
tree be conceded to pure matter, what an amazing expansion of our
notions of the 'potency of matter' is implied in the concession' Think
of the acorn, of the earth, and of the solar light and heat--was ever
such necromancy dreamt of as the production of that massive trunk,
those swaying boughs and whispering leaves, from the interaction of
these three factors? In this interaction, moreover, consists what we
call life. It will be seen that I am not in the least insensible to
the wonder of the tree; nay, I should not be surprised if, in the
presence of this wonder, I feel more perplexed and overwhelmed than
Mr. Martineau himself.

Consider it for a moment. There is an experiment, first made by
Wheatstone, where the music of a piano is transferred from its
sound-board, through a thin wooden rod, across several silent rooms in
succession, and poured out at a distance from the instrument. The
strings of the piano vibrate, not singly, but ten at a time. Every
string subdivides, yielding not one note, but a dozen. All these
vibrations and subvibrations are crowded together into a bit of deal
not more than a quarter of a square inch in section. Yet no note is
lost. Each vibration asserts its individual rights; and all are, at
last, shaken forth into the air by a second sound-board, against which
the distant end of the rod presses. Thought ends in amazement when it
seeks to realise the motions of that rod as the music flows through
it. I turn to my tree and observe its roots, its trunk, its branches,
and its leaves. As the rod conveys the music, and yields it up to the
distant air, so does the trunk convey the matter and the motion--the
shocks and pulses and other vital actions--which eventually emerge in
the umbrageous foliage of the tree. I went some time ago through the
greenhouse of a friend. He had ferns from Ceylon, the branches of
which were in some cases not much thicker than an ordinary pin--hard,
smooth, and cylindrical--often leafless for a foot or more. But at
the end of every one of them the unsightly twig unlocked the exuberant
beauty hidden within it, and broke forth into a mass of fronds, almost
large enough to fi