PLANT INTELLIGENCE 
must believe that in plants exists a faint copy of 
what we know as consciousness in ourselves.” 
Many scientists believe that life and conscious- 
ness always precede and are superior to organi- 
zation. It is urged that possibly many plants 
possess consciousness without self-consciousness 
or introspection. 
After a thoughtful consideration of such facts 
as these, only the blindest prejudice can con- 
tinue to laugh at plant intelligence. Why then 
has the world of human thought been so long 
and reluctant to acknowledge it? Simply be- 
cause it always reasons along authentic and 
established lines. For many years it has been 
taught to associate animal movement with 
special groups of cells called muscles and in- 
telligence with special groups of cells called 
nerve tissue. Failing to find any trace of nerve 
tissue in plants, it ignores a hundred convincing 
facts to the contrary, and declares that plant 
intelligence is a myth. Failing to detect a 
mechanism of sensibility, it denies the existence 
of sensibility, even though in the little Mimosa 
the sense of touch travels from leaf to leaf be- 
fore our eyes. 
{201] 
