122 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



orientation of the cells in relation to the center of gravity of the earth, 

 the two phases undergo a shifting by means of which a change in the 

 rate of reaction is brought about according to one of the ways given 

 above. Since then I have looked through the literature on the function 

 of the otoliths or statoliths, and have reached the conclusion that all 

 writers who assert that the removal of the otoliths disturbs the geo- 

 tropic orientation of animals have been victims of the same fallacy as 

 myself. They have injured or removed the nerve endings. In the only 

 case in which a removal of the otoliths without tearing or other injury 

 of the nerve endings can be justifiably assumed, no disturbance of the 

 orientation occurred. 



While in my own work I have aimed to trace the complex reactions 

 of animals to simpler reactions like those of plants and finally to physico- 

 chemical laws, the opposite tendency has lately been gaining influence. 

 Some botanists, namely, Haberlandt, Nemec and F. Darwin, endeavor 

 to show that the relatively simpler reactions of plants may be traced 

 back to the more complex relations found in animals. Instead of deriv- 

 ing the tropic reactions of plants as directly as possible from the law of 

 mass action (and other physico-chemical laws), they try to show that 

 " sense organs " exist in the cells of plants and France even attributes 

 to the latter a " soul " and an " intelligence." I believe that in order 

 to be consistent, these writers ought to base the law of mass action upon 

 the assumption of the existence of sense-organs, souls and intelligence 

 in the molecules and ions. It is probably unnecessary to emphasize the 

 fact that it is better for the progress of science to derive the more com- 

 plex phenomena from simpler components than to do the contrary, 

 namely, to try to explain the simpler by means of the more complex. 

 For all " explanation " consists solely in the presentation of a phenom- 

 enon as an unequivocal function of the variables by which it is deter- 

 mined, and if in nature we find a function of two variables, it does not, 

 in my opinion, tend toward progress to assert that this is a case of 

 functions of more than two variables, without furnishing sufficient 

 proof of this assertion. 



These writers represent the geotropic reactions of plants by saying 

 that in certain cells starch grains are present which serve the purpose 

 of the otoliths in animals. These starch grains are believed to press 

 upon the sense organs or nerve endings in the plant cells concerned 

 and the pressure sense of the plant is then supposed to give rise to the 

 geotropic curvature. I have no opposition to offer to the assumption 

 that the starch grains change their position with a change in the 

 position of the cells, and I am also willing to pass over for the present 

 the view that the starch grains form one of the two phases in the cell. 

 But I see no necessity for assuming besides this the existence of intra- 

 cellular sense organs which perceive the pressure of the starch grains. 



