THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS 
vicissitudes which crush us, such as pain, old 
age, and death, one-half the energy displayed 
by any little flower in our gardens, we may well 
believe that our lot would be very different 
from what it is.” 
No truer thought was ever set on paper. 
Though man prides himself upon his imagined 
superiority to non-human creation, and even 
denies the capacity for the higher things of life 
to animals and plants, he, in reality, nearly al- 
ways shows himself vastly inferior to them in 
actual applications of moral and _ spiritual 
principles. 
Have the plants souls and spirits? No man 
who has carefully and conscientiously studied 
them can wholly deny it. They exhibit a pluck, 
a determination, a moral perseverance which 
awaken all our admiration. Where we are weak, 
they are strong. Where men would lie down 
and die, they go steadily forward. When a plant 
perishes in the struggle for existence, it is be- 
cause the odds have been too great. To make the 
most of heredity and environment is an axiom- 
atic rule in plantdom. 
Man’s mind has developed at the expense of 
[205] 
