CONSCIOUSNESS AND PAIN 83 



Plants not 



Plants as a class are not degenerates. In 

 their way they have reached a high state of 

 development, but it is not the development 

 of animals. As their movements are slov^^, 

 and poorly co-ordinated, it must be assumed degenerates 

 that their pains and pleasures are correspond- 

 ingly feeble; not but that they are genuine, 

 nevertheless, and to them mean as much as 

 ours do tons. If another man who is inferior 

 to ourselves, if a horse, a dog, a bird may be 

 made to suffer, and in consequence ought to 

 have considerate treatment, so may the sim- 

 plest animals and so may all plants. 



I will close with a quotation from Grant 

 Allen, and acommentthereon. "Hoeing among 

 the flower beds on m^^ lawn this morning, for 

 I am a bit of a gardener inmy way," he writes, 

 "I have had the ill luck to maim a poor yellow 

 slug, who had hidden himself among the en- 

 croaching grass on the edge of my little par- 

 terre of sky-blue lobelias. This unavoidable 

 wounding and hacking of worms and insects, 

 despite all one's care, is no small drawback to 

 the pleasures of gardening irz propria persona. 

 Vivisection for genuine scientific purposes in 

 responsible hands, one can understand and 

 tolerate, even though lacking the heart for it 

 one's self; but the useless and causeless vivi- 

 section which can not be prevented in every 

 ordinary piece of farm w^ork, seems a gratu- 



