being secured by the excellency of his nature from the least touch of moral and physical evil,—is it not possible for created spirits to be endowed with a nature that shall preserve them in a state of imperturbable bliss whatever be their locality? They may carry heaven within them; they may, each individually, be surrounded with an atmosphere repellent of evil; and they may every where gaze on the glorified face of God. And such, we cannot doubt, is their actual condition while officiating for God upon the earth. That they execute many offices among us, and take no inconsiderable part in human affairs, is matter of revelation. I go to the sacred volume, and there I find them described as constantly ministering to the heirs of salvation. The little ones of the Redeemer's flock are their especial charge. They are pictured to us as encamping about the good man's habitation, to deliver him from dangers, and as bearing him up in their arms over the roughnesses of his pilgrim-way. And in that remarkable discovery made to the servant of Elisha, of horses and chariots of fire surrounding the mount on which he dwelt, it is never hinted that these glorious legions had been recently sent down; but is expressly stated that the eyes of the young man were unsealed at the prophet's prayer, and enabled to discern them.

Let us particularly attend to the account given by St. Luke of the magnificent apparition to the shepherds of Bethlehem on the evening after our Lord's nativity. From this it appears, that no sooner had the principal angel ended his message, than "suddenly there was with him a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God" in harmonious strains. In an instant, it would seem, the radiant forms of these celestial choristers became visible to the astonished herdsmen, and their noble symphonies audible. Such, I conceive, to be the just explanation of the passage. There is no reason whatever to suppose that on this great occasion the sons of God poured, down from a region immensely remote from our earth, and were seen and heard by the shepherds because they had descended within the range of human senses. That angels may be within a few paces of us, and still elude our faculties, is universally allowed, and is instanced in the history of Balaam's encounter. May we not, then, believe that by a touch of Divine power the natural film was removed in an instant from the eyes of the Bethlehemites, and the natural obstruction from their ears; and so those bright beings, who are always thronging the air, became visible to human eyes; and those hymns, which they had probably been chanting from the moment of the

Saviour's birth, now first became audible to human ears? The change was not, as I apprehend, in the place or employment of the angels; they were not in a lower sphere than usual, nor newly engaged in evangelical minstrelsy; but the organs of the shepherds were all at once made capable of spiritual vision and hearing.

Now, if this be true, it will follow almost certainly (and the fact is one of lively interest, and has many bearings), that whenever the thin partition of our bodily vehicle falls down, we shall instantly find ourselves in the midst of spiritual beings. There will be no long journey to take in order to reach the mansions of the blessed; but the good man, as soon as ever death uncloses his eyes, and opens a new field to his perceptions, will see, with ineffable delight, that he is actually in paradise, and reposing on the bosom of Christ Jesus, among prophets and apostles, among angels and archangels, and all the glorious company of heaven.

THE DESCENT INTO HELL.*

We have followed our blessed Lord through his last sufferings, and left his body, no longer conscious of indignities or violence, suspended on the cross. But the necessary incidents of humanity extend beyond sensation and visible agency; and after the witnesses of our dissolution have received our last sigh, and have closed the lids of our eyes, already effectually sealed against the light of heaven, and no longer sparkling with the expression of intellect or feeling, there are yet other scenes which, as inen, we must pass through; and there is yet another office which we claim from the pious care of our survivors: a grave is yet open for the body, and the abode of separate spirits for the soul.

While, on the testimony of the disciples, we believe (what was antecedently probable) that Jesus died and

was buried, we deduce from most certain warrant of inspiration (what we might otherwise have well supposed), that while his body remained on the cross, and slept in Joseph's tomb, his soul had passed to the habitation of the departed spirits of the just: all

which the Church universal asserts, when she teaches that he who was crucified was buried also, and descended into hell.

Nothing is more plain from Scripture, than that the soul of Jesus passed into a place of removal, as well from all visible interference with this world, as from the full fruition of heaven. To teach that the souls of men immediately at death ascend to the highest heavens, has ever been held heretical; and of himself Christ expressly said, even after his resurrection, “I am not yet ascended unto my Father;" and yet, surely, when he gave up the ghost, there was an actual local separation of the two component parts of his humanity. And to this alone the use which St. Peter makes of the words of David can agree; while those words in the original Hebrew might, by a possible ingenuity (of interpretation, shall I say, or of perversion?), be made to mean no more than-Thou shalt

* Abridged from Sermons on the Apostles' Creed, preached in the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist, Edinburgh. By the Res. Geo. Ayliffe Poole, B.A. Edinburgh, R. Grant and Son, 1837. It is scarcely necessary to remind our readers, that the subject of The Descent of Christ into Hell" is also ably discussed by Bishop Pearson on the Creed.

not leave me in the state of the dead; the apostle, | rendering them into Greek, gives them the following force and meaning: Being a prophet, and seeing this before, David spake of the resurrection of Christ; that his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption. If this clearly asserts of Christ that his flesh had been in that condition in which it might have been expected, like that of other men, and according to the established course of nature, to see corruption, it does as clearly assert that his soul had been where, if it had there been left, as are the souls of others, it would have been left in hell.

Again; if Christ's descent into and remaining in hades signify no more than his entering into and remaining in the state of the dead, what was the meaning of Christ's promise to the penitent thief, "Verily, I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise."

Nor is it more certain that his soul truly passed to the mansions of the dead, than that he passed to the mansions of the blessed dead, and that they are habitations of delight. Paradise must be a place of rest and happiness: if not of the impletion of joy and glory, yet at least of a joyful expectancy.

Of those who imagine Christ's descent into the place and condition of the wicked, it may be asked whether this is possible? The state of sinners in another world is one of suffering under the notion of punishment, which has respect unto guilt. But who shall say that Christ suffered punishment? He came, indeed, to suffer, but it was the just for the unjust; and he did suffer, but always what a just man may also suffer. When he took our nature upon him, being made like unto us, sin only excepted, it is certain that he was exempted from every thing, even in the way of suffering, to the proper notion of which sin in the sufferer is essential. In this world he bore not the sufferings of a guilty conscience, nor the natural results of lawless pleasure: and surely we may extend the analogy of these sufferings on earth to his condition in the unseen world; and may assert, that, as on earth he suffered nothing which we dare call punishment, nor any thing but what, being incident to human nature, the best man might suffer, so was it also with his soul in its state of separation. Nor should we forget, that whatever Jesus suffered is included in the term his cross; which cross many martyrs have actually borne; which cross, in a figurative sense, we are all taught to bear; though we are no where taught to look for punishment, nor to endure any thing that has any connexion with sin. Still less is there the appearance of punishment in any of the consequences of these sufferings either to Christ or to us; for if we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified together: though we read no more of any glory succeeding punishment, than of any sufferings of Christ which we are not to be ready to partake. Surely it follows, and that by a necessary consequence, that Jesus descended not to Gehenna, or the place of the wicked, but to the habitation of good spirits; and that when on the cross he exclaimed, "It is finished," his sufferings were at an end.

When, therefore, we say that Christ descended into hell, we are as careful to guard against the opinion that he descended to Gehenna, or the place of the damned, as earnest to assert that the soul at his death did really leave the body, and that he did in his spirit for a while inhabit the mansions of the dead. The article of the creed expresses this; for the word hell, in its etymology as in its ancient use, has the same signification with the word hades, the original word in the creed; by which the Greeks did, and by which we sometimes do to this day, designate the Labitation of departed spirits generally, not distinctively either of the good or of the bad. It is etymolocally the unseen place; it is by usage the place of departed souls generally; but its collocation in the

Apostles' Creed determines its meaning here to be, the unseen habitation of the spirits of the just-in one word, paradise.

An important question now suggests itself: What was the occupation of Christ's human soul in the habitation of departed spirits, or had he any? This question we can only answer in the words of St. Peter: "Being put to death in the flesh, but quick (or still living) in the spirit" (for thus Bishop Horsley translates the passage); "Being put to death in the flesh, but alive in the spirit: (in which) he went, in the spirit, and preached to the souls of men in safe keeping, which one while had been disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is eight souls, were saved by water."

Christ, then, preached in his spirit in hades to the spirits of those who, having been for a time disobedient, perished in the flood. Not to all who perished, but to those only who turned, at least in their last hour, to God: for it is neither declared nor implied in the sacred narrative, that all who were overwhelmed in the deluge perished in final impenitency.

But what and wherefore did Christ thus preach? "Certainly (says Bishop Horsley) he preached neither repentance nor faith; for the preaching of either comes too late to the departed soul. These souls had believed and repented, or they had not been in that part of the nether regions which the soul of the Redeemer visited. Nor was the end of his preaching any liberation of them from, we know not what, purgatorial pains, of which the Scriptures give not the slightest intimation. But if he went to proclaim to them (and to proclaim, or publish, is the true sense of the word to preach,') the glad tidings that he had actually offered the sacrifice of their redemption, and was about to appear before the Father as their intercessor, in the merit of his own blood, this was a preaching fit to be addressed to departed souls, and would give new animation and assurance to their hope of the consummation, in due season, of their bliss; and this, it may be presumed, was the end of his preaching."*

paradise. If Christ's occupation was in the exercise of intellectual powers in himself and others, and in the promotion of religious feelings, so may ours be so also; and the hearts that have sometimes, during their earthly pilgrimage, burned by the way, while emulating the converse of our risen Lord with his disciples, may again glow with a more divine flame when they resume the pious conference in the mansions of departed spirits. Those habitations of the dead, of which, chiefly perhaps because of their obscurity, we think with instinctive awe, are thus invested with a less gloomy character; and we are taught to look upon them also as included in our beneficial possessions. The world is ours, because Christ dwelt in it and overcame it; life, because Christ lived and sanctified life; death, because he died and took the sting from death; the grave, because there he laid down for us his body, that thence he might recover it for us; and hades, because thither he in his soul descended, illumining those regions of darkness with his light, and dispelling what there was of spiritual gloom by his preaching.

But since, at the best, hades is a place not of fruition but of expectancy, not of glory but of repose, the assurance that we shall not there remain is a great part of the happy prospect which Christ's descent thither affords us. For we may and must look on his descent as connected, as well with his resurrection, which it necessarily preceded, as with his death, on which it was consequent. And herein also are we triumphantly participant in Christ's victory over hades; and we may say, as it was said of him, Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell, that is, for ever. And commensurate with our rejoicing, and hope, and victory, and dominion in these things, may we imagine to have been Satan's rage and despair, when he beheld Christ approaching each successive stage of his human career. From all his possessions, assumed or permitted, was he successively thrust out. At the going forth of the first heralds of his kingdom, Christ saw Satan falling as lightning from heaven. By his whole life he overcame, and assumed as his right by conquest, that world which the archapostate had declared to be his, to give to whom he would: and again and again was Satan driven from the bodies and spirits of men at the word of the Son of God. Did he retreat into the regions of the air, of the princes of the evil powers of which he was the chief? Thither, too, Christ on the cross followed him, and thence did he cast him down; and purified both the air and the earth from the effects of his malignant contact; on the one, pouring down water and blood from his side, and stretching forth his holy hands into the other. The grave and hades seemed yet open to the person and machinations of the enemy; and how gladly would he have retained these, even though he must for that purpose have relaxed in his persecution of Jesus! With what cunning malice did he suggest the taunt and the temptation: "If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross: He saved others, himself he cannot save!" But Christ had another way to save others, and to prove that he had saved them, than by sparing himself; and another way of declaring himself to be the Son of God with power, than by listening to the suggestions of the deceiver. Into his last retreat, and that through the ordinary gates of death, did the Saviour pursue his enemy and ours; and now hath he driven him to his own place, and to his own tortures; while we, who, even in this world, through Him who thus wounded and bound the great dragon, tread on serpents and scorpions unhurt, in the state of separation look for nothing but rest, and the full assurance of approaching triumph and happiness: and by faith united with Christ we may say henceforth, "O death, where is thy sting; O grave (for here the grave includes the intermediate state and habita

tion of the soul), where is thy victory. Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA.

THE prophecies relative to the various events connected with the death of the Saviour were all so remarkably fulfilled, that it is almost incredible that the Jews should have hardened their hearts against conviction, and not been led to admit that he was none other than the long-promised Messiah. Of these prophecies, none were more remarkable than that of Isaiah respecting his burial, that he should "make his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death;" or, according to Bishop Lowth," his grave was appointed with the wicked, with the rich man should be his tomb;" which forms part of that chapter which so much more resembles a narrative of events which have occurred, than a prophecy of events to come, that its perusal, under the Divine blessing, has been instrumental in bringing not a few unbelievers to the acknowledgment of the truth. The former part of this prophecy was fully accomplished in the crucifixion of Jesus between two malefactors: the latter part in the honourable burial which his body received.

The mode of our Lord's death rendered it most improbable that he should be favoured with the rites of sepulture. The Roman malefactors who were put to death by crucifixion were not, generally speaking, buried; their bodies were suffered to remain on the cross until devoured by the fowls of the air, or until, becoming a prey to corruption, they gradually disappeared; and lest any relative or friend might be induced to remove the corpse, it was constantly watched by a guard. St Matthew tells us, that as our Lord hung upon the cross, there was a "centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus:" when he was dead, the centurion made known the circumstance to Pilate, but the watch remained. Among the Jews, however, the custom was different: "If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day" (Deut. xxi. 22, 23). On this account, and because the next day was the Sabbath, the Jews besought that the legs of Jesus and those that were with him should be broken, and the bodies carried away. In the case of the Saviour, of whom a bone was not to be broken, and who was already dead, this act of cruelty was dispensed with. The body, by Pilate's order, was taken down from the cross, to be consigned to the common place of burial allotted to malefactors, when there came a rich man of Arimathæa, named Joseph, an honourable counsellor, a good man and a just, who also himself waited for the kingdom of God, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews- he begged the body of the Saviour. Pilate granted the request, which the law warranted him to do; and in the tomb of Joseph the body of Jesus was placed, after receiving every mark of affectionate regard from him, as well as Nicodemus, who brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred weight. They took the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices,

as the manner of the Jews is to bury. How strikingly, even to the very letter, then, were the prophecies fulfilled-that the Messiah should be for an allotted period in the heart of the earth, and that his flesh, instead of being devoured by birds of prey, or being decomposed, should not see corruption, but rest in hope that his sepulture should be honourable-that two almost contradictory declarations should be brought to pass-that an ignominious death and an honourable burial should have been his lot, within the space of a few hours, and both at the hands of chiefs in Israel. But there is nothing too hard for the Lord; that infinite mercy and consummate wisdom, which devised a gracious plan for man's redemption, could be at no loss in accomplishing its several details.

There is something peculiarly interesting in the account given us concerning Joseph. It is especially marked by the evangelists that he was rich, thus testifying the accomplishment of the prophecy. His riches, however, were not, as they too often are, employed in ministering to sensual gratification, but, it would appear, were judiciously expended in ministering to the necessities of others. He was held in high

reputation, though not occupying the same rank as Nicodemus, who was a member of the Sanhedrim. He was "an honourable counsellor," whose dealings were marked by the strictest integrity; "a good man and a just," who could not but have witnessed with peculiar displeasure the iniquitous conduct of his countrymen, and who, even had he been unconvinced that Jesus was the Christ, must have acknowledged the injustice of his sentence. There is a sense of justice and high moral principle not unfrequently displayed, even by persons of whom it cannot be said that they are under the influence of vital religion; an upright mode of action, which is extremely important to the well-being of society, and which is ever to be esteemed, but which, nevertheless, must not pass for strict Christian principle, though the world frequently regards it as such. Is there not reason to fear, that much injury has arisen to the Christian cause by a deficiency in such upright and straightforward conduct in many religious professors? In real Christians there

The Jewish rites of sepulture were not very dissimilar to these of the Egyptians, from whom they seem originally to have been derived. The Egyptian manner differed from the Jewish incipally in the circumstance of their embowelling their dead, the various methods of performing which are minutely described by Herodotus. The funeral honours paid by the Jews to their deceased friends, particularly to persons of fortune and distincfun, appear to be the following: after washing the corpse, they abalmed it by laying all around it a large quantity of costly pices and aromatic drugs, in order to imbibe and absorb the bours, and, by their inherent virtues, to preserve it as long a possible from putrefaction and decay. Thus we read that Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pounds weight, to perform the customary office to the dear deceased. This embalming was usually repeated for several tays together, that the drugs and spices thus applied might have all their efficacy in the exsiccation of the moisture, and de future conservation of the body. They then swathed the pse in linen rollers, or bandages, closely enfolding and enwrapping it in that bed of aromatic drugs with which they had Founded it. Thus we find that Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus took the body of Jesus, and wrapped it in linen ththes, with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury John, xix. 40). This custom we behold also in the Egyptian mummies, round which, Thevenot informs us, the Egyptians have sometimes used above a thousand ells of filleting, beside what was wrapped about the head.-Rev. T. H. Horne.

will, as a necessary fruit of the motives by which they are actuated, be a strict integrity of conduct and openness of character; but the nominal professor, even while he talks loudly on the subject of religion, sometimes acts inconsistently, and scandal is thus brought on the Christian name.

Joseph, however, was a believer in Jesus as the Christ; like many of his pious countrymen, he had been waiting for the kingdom of God-for the arrival of the long-promised Deliverer. He could not withstand the proofs by which Jesus declared himself to be the Messiah. So far there is every thing to admire in his character; but our unqualified admiration ceases, when we are told that he was a disciple SECRETLY, and that the fear of the Jews was the cause of his concealing his real sentiments. He did not, indeed, form one of the impious band who took counsel against the Lord and his Anointed; he did not consent unto the Saviour's crucifixion: still, there was not that open, bold, uncompromising, declaration of discipleship which there ought to have been. Like Nicodemus, who shared with him in the honourable work of burial, and whose first visit to our Lord was by night, a sinful fear of man prevailed over his better feelings, and prevented him openly ranking himself among the disciples. How frequently does this baneful principle operate on the mind, deterring even those who are true disciples from making a bold avowal of their sentiments! There is a negative as well as a positive denial of Christ; the former may not bear all the external marks of ingratitude and irresolution, but he that is not for Christ is against him.

After the crucifixion, however, Joseph acted a manly and a noble part. He came forward at a moment when every indignity was heaped upon the mangled remains of Jesus, when the excitement of the populace must have rendered it dangerous openly to espouse the Saviour's cause. The mark of respect testified by laying the body in his own new sepulchre, was a public avowal of attachment, and of an entire willingness to suffer shame or reproach for the Saviour's sake; and if the affectionate conduct and good work of Mary, who anointed Jesus with reference to his burial, shall be mentioned to her honour wherever the Gospel shall be preached, surely the name of the rich counsellor of Arimathæa shall not be unrecorded. In him, indeed, there is much to admire, and much to imitate. Amiable and honourable in the various relative duties to the performance of which he was called, his avowal of discipleship at such a moment merits our highest praise, and teaches us that, under all circumstances, it is our duty, and it is to be esteemed our privilege, manfully to espouse the cause of that Master whom we profess to serve, whose disciples we profess to be, and on whose merits we profess all our hopes of salvation to be founded. And, if there is not a little to condemn in his so long concealing his discipleship from a sinful fear, while it reminds us of the weakness and irresolution of man, and should lead us to pray earnestly for strength from on high lest we should be guilty of the like cowardice, so ought it to remind us that perfection is not to be found in man here below, and that the model for the Christian's imitation-the mind which he is to

Sacred Philosophy.

0.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE NATURAL THEOLOGY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM.

BY ROBERT DICKSON, M.D., F.L.S.

No. III.

"The oak but little recks it

What seasons come or go,

It loves to breathe the gale of spring,
And bask in summer's glow!

But more to feel the wintry winds
Sweep by in awful mirth,

For well it knows each blast must fix
Its roots more deep in earth.

Would that to me life's changes

Did thus with blessings come-
That mercies might, like gale of spring,
Cause some new grace to bloom;
And that the storm, which scattereth
Each earth-born hope abroad,
Might anchor those of holier birth

More firmly on my God!"

Mrs. WM. HEY's Spirit of the Woods.

IN the preceding paper I endeavoured to shew what means were employed in the economy of nature to keep up an adequate supply of those ingredients of the soil which are essentially necessary for nourishing plants, and contributing to their growth. I must now point out by what kind of apparatus these materials are abstracted from a soil abounding in them, and introduced into the interior of an herb or tree. This leads me to treat of the root, the chief organ employed for this purpose. Before proceeding, however, to this immediate subject, it seems expedient to make some observations on the mode of nutrition of organised bodies in general, and then of plants specially.

Organised bodies are divided into two great sections, termed the animal and vegetable kingdoms, the respective members of which possess certain properties in common, while they differ in other points. It is extremely difficult to find discriminative marks between the lower grades of plants and lower grades of animals; but as we ascend the scale of organisation the distinctive characters become more obvious, and at last completely disjunctive. It is only with those members of the two kingdoms which are unquestionably distinct that I will here concern the reader. Almost all the differences between them will be found to have reference to the possession by the one set of consciousness or sensibility, a property denied to the other. Hence the one is endowed with the faculty of locomotion-the other is fixed. And here the benevolence of the Creator is shewn in adapting each to its appropriate mode of existence. To have bestowed consciousness or sensibility on a class of bodies devoid of the power of locomotion would have savoured of cruelty, inasmuch as it would have given to them a sense of coming danger without the means of evading it. Thus the tree stands regardless of the uplifted axe which is to lay its glories low, while the animal betakes itself to flight, or uses some other expedient to escape the impending blow. As another result of the different condition in which it was intended they should respectively exist, we find animals possessed of organs of sense, or, as they are termed, organs of relation, from putting their owner in a state of relation to the external world,-sight,

These differences have a marked influence on the manner of acquiring nourishment by each: animals go in search of their food, and move from place to place as the supply becomes exhausted; plants are in a great measure dependent on the food being already stored up in the soil where they vegetate, and when that is consumed the individual dies; but, under such circumstances, it generally has recourse to an expedient analogous to removal by animals, viz. previously flowering, and forming seeds, by which the vital principle is thrown into a latent or dormant state; so that it may be transported or conveyed to a new locality abounding with the materials of nutrition.

That this is the primary object of the formation of seeds, I trust to be able to demonstrate in a future paper; and therefore revert to the points of difference now under discussion.

Except in the case of a few hybernating animals, the functions of animals, being less influenced by the state of the physical agents with which they are surrounded than those of plants, go on with nearly equal activity and regularity at all times; and as the process of waste is uniform, so the supply of nourishment must be uniform. Hence animals are furnished with an internal reservoir or store-room (the stomach and its appendages), into which a considerable quantity of food can be introduced at one time, to be subsequently distributed through the system according to its wants. Plants are devoid of this cavity. The more concentrated the nourishment, the less alteration is requisite to fit it for the supply of the animal which uses it; hence the size of the stomach, and length of the alimentary canal, is less in carnivorous than in herbivorous and ruminating animals. Plants are the mere institutors or beginners of the process of digestion; and before the crude material which they take up from the soil is fit for some of the higher animals, it must be subjected to a variety and succession of processes, accomplished by the different grades of animals, many of which appear to exist (independent of the enjoyment of existence during their lives) only to prepare food for others.

An important difference subsists between the elements of respiration of plants and animals; for, while the one set abstracts carbon from the atmosphere, and throws into it oxygen, the other set abstracts oxygen, and returns carbonic acid to the air. A harmony is kept up, and the atmosphere maintained in a state of purity by their opposite habitudes, while ends of great importance to themselves are attained; for by this means animals obtain oxygen, which they require as a stimulus or excitement to enable them to exercise their locomotive power; while plants obtain the carbon, which is necessary to fix them and give them solidity.

The trunk or body of most plants is erect or vertical; the frame of animals is horizontal, except man, the last and greatest of the works of the Creator. "Pronaque cùm spectent animalia cætera terram, Os homini sublime dedit, cœlumque tueri Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus." "Thus while the mute creation downward bend Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend, Man looks aloft, and, with erected eyes, Beholds his own hereditary skies."

The vertical position is given to plants that they may be more efficiently exposed to the solar light, the necessary agent for the accomplishment of most of their functions. The most important functions of vegetables are generally performed near, or immediately below their surface, especially of the leaves; while the greater number of the important functions of animals are performed or carried on in the internal and deeper-seated organs. The cause of this difference seems to be, that the one set of organised bodies are