nqueror
of Ireland; Evreux = town in Normandy, France; a D'Uzes = a member of
an ancient noble family in southern France}

Plants have sensation as well as animals. The latter, however, have no
consciousness anterior to their physical births, and very little,
indeed, for some time afterwards; whereas a different law prevails as
respects us; our mental conformation being such as to enable us to
refer our moral existence to a period that embraces the experience,
reasoning and sentiments of several generations. As respects logical
inductions, for instance, the linum usitatissimum draws as largely on
the intellectual acquisitions of the various epochas that belonged to
the three or four parent stems which preceded it, as on its own. In a
word, that accumulated knowledge which man inherits by means of books,
imparted and transmitted information, schools, colleges, and
universities, we obtain through more subtle agencies that are
incorporated with our organic construction, and which form a species of
hereditary mesmerism; a vegetable clairvoyance that enables us to see
with the eyes, hear with the ears, and digest with the understandings
of our predecessors.

{epochas = archaic Latinized spelling of epochs}

Some of the happiest moments of my moral existence were thus obtained,
while our family was growing in the fields of Normandy. It happened
that a distinguished astronomer selected a beautiful seat, that was
placed on the very margin of our position, as a favorite spot for his
observations and discourses; from a recollection of the latter of
which, in particular, I still derive indescribable satisfaction. It
seems as only yesterday--it is in fact fourteen long, long years--that
I heard him thus holding forth to his pupils, explaining the marvels of
the illimitable void, and rendering clear to my understanding the vast
distance that exists between the Being that created all things and the
works of his hands. To those who live in the narrow circle of human
interests and human feelings, there ever exists, unheeded, almost
unnoticed, before their very eyes, the most humbling proofs of their
own comparative insignificance in the scale of creation, which, in the
midst of their admitted mastery over the earth and all it contains, it
would be well for them to consider, if they would obtain just views of
what they are and what they were intended to be.

I think I can still hear this learned and devout man--for his soul was
fil