MENTALITY AND SPIRITUALITY 191 



returned to their original haunts, reassume their 

 natural forms. There must be in the plant some 

 prompting sense which makes it realise any unfit- 

 ness in its life or being. 



An example of this may be seen by any one who 

 will make the experiment. An oxalis, a regular 

 "night sleeper," if subjected to strong light by 

 night and darkness by day, at first will open and 

 shut irregularly, as if distressed and upset by the 

 unnaturalness of its new conditions, then gradu- 

 ally will assume its accustomed sleeping and wak- 

 ing periods, but regulating them by the darkness 

 and light. On removing the artificial light and 

 allowing the return of natural day and night to the 

 flower, it will, after another period of uncertainty, 

 return to its old habits of waking and sleeping. 



These periods of uncertainty can be accounted 

 for only by accrediting the plant with a sense of 

 the fitness of things, a physical sense. But, grant- 

 ing such a sense, one comes suggestively near to 

 granting to the plant an actual reasoning power. 



Plants, then, have seven senses: sight, hearing, 

 feeling, taste, smell, a psychic sense, and a physi- 

 cal sense; or six senses and a reasoning power if 

 the physical sense be admitted as such. These 

 senses might be termed "passive" mentality: that 

 is, senses which, to perform their functions, possi- 



