t is as certain that there is a new activity in
matter--some matter--that we call vital.

Matter behaves in a new manner; builds up new compounds and begets
myriads of new forms not found in the inorganic world, till it finally
builds up the body and mind of man. Death puts an end to this activity
alike in man and tree, and a new kind of activity sets in--a
disorganizing activity, still with the aid of water and air and living
organisms. It is like the compositor distributing his type after the
book is printed. The micro-organisms answer to the compositor, but they
are of a different kind from those which build up the body in the first
instance. But the living body as a whole, with its complex of
cooerdinating organs and functions--what attended to that? The cells
build the parts, but what builds the whole?

How many things we have in common with the trees! The same mysterious
gift of life, to begin with; the same primary elements--carbon,
nitrogen, oxygen, and so on--in our bodies; and many of the same vital
functions--respiration, circulation, absorption, assimilation,
reproduction. Protoplasm is the basis of life in both, and the cell is
the architect that builds up the bodies of both. Trees are rooted men
and men are walking trees. The tree absorbs its earth materials through
the minute hairs on its rootlets, called fibrillae, and the animal body
absorbs its nutriment through analogous organs in the intestines, called
lacteals.

Whitman's expression "the slumbering and liquid trees" often comes to my
mind. They are the words of a poet who sees hidden relations and
meanings everywhere. He knows how fluid and adaptive all animate nature
is. The trees are wrapped in a kind of slumber in winter, and they are
reservoirs of living currents in summer. If all living bodies came
originally out of the sea, they brought a big dower of the sea with
them. The human body is mainly a few pinches of earth salts held in
solution by several gallons of water. The ashes of the living tree bulk
small in comparison with the amount of water it holds. Yes, "the
slumbering and liquid trees." They awaken from their slumber in the
spring, the scales fall from their buds, the fountains within them are
unsealed, and they again become streams of living energy, breaking into
leaf and bloom and fruit under the magic of the sun's rays.

II

THE PLEASURES OF A NATURALIST

I

How closely every crack and corner of nature is packed wit