WHAT IS PHYSICAL LIFE 



animals and plants, all based on the food 

 question, are advanced by such biologists 

 as Delfino, Cope, Pauly, and Firanci, 

 while Sir Francis Darwin, son of Charles 

 Darwin, in his inaugural address as Pres- 

 ident of the British Association of Science, 

 at Dublin, 1908, says: "It is impossible 

 to know whether or not plants are con- 

 scious; but it is consistent with the doc- 

 trine of continuity that in all living things 

 there is something psychic, and if we ac- 

 cept this point of view, we must believe 

 that in plants there exists a faint copy of 

 what we know as consciousness in our- 

 selves." 



But at this point we must part company 

 with these learned observers. Though ad- 

 mitting that life is fundamentally one in 

 both plant and animal, yet in common 

 with most of our fellows we regard con- 

 sciousness as the sole attribute of certain 

 sentient nervous centres, and hence cannot 



