REALM OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS 



ence cannot draw it with certainty; and it is 

 significant that the lowest animal-plants or plant- 

 animals have freer power of movement than all 

 higher plants and than many higher animals. 



There is no doubt, again, about the status of 

 the sea-anemone as an animal ; yet it has no better 

 means of protesting against interference than has 

 the Sensitive Plant, for it simply closes up when 

 touched. At the same time it can to a slight ex- 

 tent it can sting like a nettle and captures its food 

 in the same way as the sundew plant, which is 

 common on English marshes. For the sundew is 

 a small plant with a flat rosette of little red leaves. 

 Each leave bristles with sticky tentacles; and so 

 soon as an unlucky insect, tempted by the odor 

 of the sticky fluid, alights upon the leaf, all the 

 tentacles close in upon him and the leaf remains 

 closed over his corpse until the last particle of 

 juice has been sucked from his tissues. I have 

 seen tame sundew plants in flower pots, that were 

 regularly fed on flies : and what more can the sea- 

 anemone do than this? 



As evidence, moreover, that the sea-anemone, 

 although undoubtedly an animal, cannot possess 

 any human consciousness of individuality in suf- 

 fering, I will quote an experience. 



In an aquarium many years ago I had a num- 

 ber of vigorous sea-anemones, and was often 

 [39] 



