XV. 



THE INNER LIFE OF PLANTS. 



THERE can exist no doubt that the popular idea of a plant in 

 respect of its living powers is that of an organism which merely 

 hovers, so to speak, on the verge of existence. The notions that 

 plants may possess sympathies and feelings or, to speak more 

 physiologically, " sensations " and that they are by no means the 

 inert beings which everyday-philosophy supposes, have not yet 

 dawned upon the popular intelligence. Yet the last decade of 

 science has certainly tended to raise the plant as a living, and 

 moreover as a sympathetic and active being, in the botanist's 

 estimation. The Linnaean maxim that " stones grow." that " plants 

 grow and live," and that " animals grow, and live, and feel," no longer 

 expresses the gist of botanical ideas concerning plant-life and its 

 varied interests. For one thing, we certainly know of many plants 

 that not only " feel " as accurately and as sensitively as many animals, 

 but exhibit a far higher range of sensation than animals of by no 

 means the lowest grade. And, as the sequel may show, we are 

 acquainted with many instances among plants of the selection and 

 pursuit of a particular way of life, as intelligent indeed as the 

 corresponding choice and pursuit of habit amongst many of their 

 animal neighbours. 



It is true that we can hardly criticise the popular idea of the 

 inertness of plant-life too severely, when we consider that to the 

 uninitiated eye the world of plants does not present any signs 

 or symptoms of ordinary, not to say marked, activity. Although 

 Wordsworth long ago declared his belief that the flower was not 

 insensible to the enjoyment of the air it breathed, the idea thus 

 mooted of the active personality of plants was far too vague and 

 poetic to influence the popular mind in its estimate of the phy- 

 siological ways of the vegetable kingdom. Furthermore, it might 

 be asked, does not the evidence of the senses constituting, as 

 every one knows, the sole but inefficient criterion of what is and 

 of what is not convince us that the plant-world is simply a huge 

 repository of unfeeling organisms, whose right and title to the idea 

 of life is best expressed by the secondary meaning which has come 

 to be attached to the word " vegetate " ? Does the flower feel the 

 massacre of its petals as it is slowly vivisected beneath the hand of 

 its fair and unthinking possessor ? Or does the tree heed the axe 



