424 CELL INTELLIGENCE THE CAUSE OF EVOLUTION 



birds are marvelous works of art. They admit that these 

 structures are wonders in design and architecture, but 

 that the beings producing them have no intelligence now, 

 but that at some time in the distant past, these acts were 

 performed with intelligence so long that they finally be- 

 came a habit, automatic and instinctive. Can anyone 

 comprehend how or when any animal, including man, was 

 any more intelligent than he is today. It is nonsense. 

 To say that a bird or an animal performs intelligent pur- 

 posive acts blindly, is only playing with words. The acts 

 of a being performed with precision and certainty to 

 effect a certain purpose, are not done accidentally nor 

 blindly, any more in the case of one kind of being than 

 in another. When the insect, fly or beetle, gets inside of 

 the trap of the plant called Venus fly-trap, the trap snaps 

 shut and holds him. The plant or rather the cells in 

 charge of the trap are notified that he is far enough inside 

 of the trap, and so they slam it shut ; as soon as the insect 

 is caught, gastric juice is made to flow over him and 

 digest him ; when the insect is eaten, the trap is again 

 opened and set for a new victim. If this plant is fooled 

 by a substance not food, it will not catch it, nor will it 

 try to digest it. The cells in the plant can distinguish and 

 choose what they want. Can intelligent man build and 

 operate a trap any better, or show any more intelligence? 

 The structure produced, occupied and operated by these 

 cells has no blood, bones, nerves or brain like man, but 

 the beings who direct the actions of this structure are the 

 same and can not be distinguished from the others in 

 general appearance under the microscope. If the cells 

 of man and the cells of a plant look alike and act alike, 

 why should one be any more intelligent than the other. 

 The cell builds everything just as a highly skilled man 

 or an architect does. 



