SOME MOOT POINTS LV XATLRAL HISTORY. 267 



white and rede" of Chaucer which close their florets on 

 the approach of evening's chill ; the marigold, which similarly 

 guards its effulgence from the cold of twilight and darkness ; 

 and the sun-flowers, influenced in their mode of growth by 

 the kindly rays of the sun, nay, even the fact that plants 

 grow and flourish best where they can most readily obtain 

 the genial influences of heat and moisture ; strongly impress 

 the mind with the belief that sensitiveness exists throughout 

 the whole plant creation, varying, no doubt, in degree, but 

 still represented, and serving to connect the organism with 

 its surroundings. Thus, although the flower which we pull 

 to pieces gives no sign of pain, and although the idea of 

 " pain," as we of higher grade understand that word, cannot 

 be said to apply in any sense to plants or to the lowest 

 animals, the thought must nevertheless be present in the 

 mind of the physiologist that the plant is "feeling" the 

 separation of its parts in a low and unspecialised fashion. 

 To this low sensation of common plants the better-defined 

 irritability of a sensitive-plant may be said to bear much the 

 same relation as the start and alarm of the higher animal 

 exhibits, when compared with the low sensitiveness of the 

 animalcule. 



Thus the botanist, indulging in no wild dream, but ex- 

 pressing a belief warranted by scientific induction, may not 

 inaptly adopt the language of Wordsworth, when he says 



" And 'tis my faith that ever}' flower 

 Enjoys the air it breathes." 



The development of active movements in plants, these move- 

 ments being excited by outward impressions and by stimuli 

 of various kinds, necessarily suggests the further inquiry 

 whether such phenomena in plant life result from the pre- 

 sence of nerves or equivalent structures. The irritability 

 of a sensitive-plant or of a Venus's-flytrap, judged by all the 

 signs we are accustomed to note as evinced by the nervous- 

 ness of animals, would appear to present a singular coinci- 

 dence and analogy to nervous acts. But, as Mr. Darwin 



