Literary Notices. ci 



tic feats ; but no one would call those movements conscious ? When 

 some of the lower animals seek the light while others shrink from it, are 

 their movements dictated by a mind? Such questions form the gordian 

 knot of psychology. Unaided psychology cannot solve these questions. 

 Let us call physiology to her aid. 



The basis of man's consciousness is a central nervous system, con- 

 sisting of a brain and a spinal cord. Wherever we find such a nervous 

 system the probability is that there we will find a mind also. Lower 

 down in the scale we find that the higher invertebrates possess a nervous 

 system that differs essentially from the vertebrate nervous system. It 

 consists of chains of ganglia grouped in various ways in different cases. 

 But some of the invertebrates display undoubted intellectual traits. Re- 

 call the ants and bees. Since the neurological basis of consciousness is 

 the same in all higher invertebrates, we may conclude that they all have 

 a mind. Among animals that have no nervous systems are the infuso- 

 ria. Here the so-called courting movements indicate a mind.l Lower 

 than the infusoria we find no movements that appear to be due to con- 

 sciousness. Since there is no essential physical difference between the 

 infusoria and the lower protozoans, why draw a line in the psychical 

 world. In the physical world there has been a gradual transition from 

 lower to higher forms, why not have the same in the psychical world. 



Fechner has predicated a soul of plants, certainly it is a difficult 

 matter to separate plants from animals. 2 If plants have a mind, feeling 

 is the predominating element. 



1. All Biologists would not agree with Kroener here. Some would think the lo- 

 comotive movements and the feeding movements of these animals were more indica- 

 tive of consciousness than the so-called courting movements. But such discrepancies 

 are to be expected. As Morgan would say, it is no easy matter to eject correctly when 

 the organism is morphologically at so great a remove. 



2. The manner in whsch certain plants (Drosera, Dionea) entrap insects and then 

 cast away the "bones" when they are satiated; the manner in which the dandelion 

 erects its head until its flowers are fertilized by insects; then lowers its head untfl 

 the seed are matured, and then re-erects it to have the seed scattered by the wind, 

 are all things that seem as much indicative of consciousness as many examples cited 

 by Kroener as indicating a mind in the protozoans. Furthermore, the changes plants 

 have undergone in the struggle for existence, are as much indicative of mind as the 

 majority of the char^ges that the lower antmals have undergone. Kroener, however, 

 does not think that plants have a mind. 



