world is to be representation, it must present itself as designed for an end; and this only takes place in an intellect. [246] Compare "Die Welt a. W. u. V." 3rd edition, vol. II. p. 375. [Add. to 3rd ed.] It undoubtedly follows from my doctrine, that every being is its own work. Nature, which is incapable of falsehood and is as _naïve_ as genius, asserts the same thing downright; since each being merely kindles the spark of life at another exactly similar being, and then makes itself before our eyes, taking the materials for this from outside, form and movement from its own self: this process we call growth and development. Thus, even empirically, each being stands before us as its own work. But Nature's language is not understood because it is too simple. PHYSIOLOGY OF PLANTS. The corroborations I am now about to bring forward of the phenomenon of the will in plants, proceed chiefly from French sources, from a nation whose tendencies are decidedly empirical and which is reluctant to go a step beyond what is immediately given. The informant moreover is Cuvier, whose rigid adherence to the purely empirical gave rise to the famous dispute between him and Geoffroy de St. Hilaire. So we must not be astonished if the language we meet with here is less decided than in the preceding German corroborations and if we find each concession made with cautious reserve. In his "Histoire des Progrès des Sciences Naturelles depuis 1789 jusqu'á ce jour,"[247] Cuvier says: "Plants have certain apparently spontaneous movements, which they show under certain circumstances and which at times so closely resemble those of animals, that a sort of feeling and _will_ might almost be attributed to plants on this account, especially by those who think they can perceive something of the same kind in the movements of the _inward_ parts of animals. Thus the tops of trees always have a vertical tendency, excepting when they incline towards the light. Their roots seek out good earth and moisture and, in order to attain these, deviate from the straight course. Yet these different tendencies cannot be explained by the influence of external causes, unless we also assume the existence of an inner natural disposition, susceptible of being roused, which differs from the mere mechanical force in inorganic bodies.... Decandolle made some remarkable experiments that proved to him the existence of a sort of habit in plants which may be overcome by artificial light, but only after a certain time. Plants that had been shut up in a cellar which was continually lit by lamps, did not on this account leave off closing in the evening and opening again in the morning for several days. And there are other habits besides which plants are able to adopt and to abandon. Flowers that habitually close in wet weather, finish by remaining open if the wet weather lasts too long. When M. Desfontaines took a sensitive plant with him in his carriage, the jolting movement