The views of plants are sadly narrow; all dissenters
are narrow-minded; but within their own bounds they know the
details of their business sufficiently well--as well as though they
kept the most nicely-balanced system of accounts to show them their
position. They are eaten, it is true; to eat them is our bigoted
and intolerant way of trying to convert them: eating is only a
violent mode of proselytising or converting; and we do convert
them--to good animal substance, of our own way of thinking. But
then, animals are eaten too. They convert one another, almost as
much as they convert plants. And an animal is no sooner dead than
a plant will convert it back again. It is obvious, however, that
no schism could have been so long successful, without having a good
deal to say for itself.
Neither party has been quite consistent. Who ever is or can be?
Every extreme--every opinion carried to its logical end--will prove
to be an absurdity. Plants throw out roots and boughs and leaves;
this is a kind of locomotion; and as Dr. Erasmus Darwin long since
pointed out, they do sometimes approach nearly to what may be
called travelling; a man of consistent character will never look at
a bough, a root, or a tendril without regarding it as a melancholy
and unprincipled compromise. On the other hand, many animals are
sessile, and some singularly successful genera, as spiders, are in
the main liers-in-wait.
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