332 Life and Immortality. 



very few persons are willing to admit ; but there is no get- 

 ting away from the fact. The tip of the radicle of a plant 

 not only has the power, acting as a brain, as it would seem, 

 of guiding the root out of the reach of an obstacle that would 

 be injurious, or in the direction of water when it would be 

 an advantage, but a tendril has also the ability, in obedience 

 to some inherent force, of making its way to a support that 

 has been purposely placed in the near distance for its espe- 

 cial benefit. No external agencies, which the materialistic 

 naturalist has devised for accounting for the movements of 

 plants and low types of animal existences that are devoid of 

 a visible nervous system, can possibly explain these move- 

 ments, which are only explicable on the theory that nervous 

 energy may be elaborated and be distributed without such a 

 system by and through the general mass of the plant or 

 animal, or by and through such parts as may be necessary 

 to its good. 



No one who has experimented with the Droseras or Sun- 

 dews, can have failed to observe the extreme sensitiveness 

 which resides in their leaves. That these plants manifest a 

 comparatively high order of consciousness, there can be no 

 question. Try them with insects, or rare bits of meat, as 

 articles of diet, and in a few hours, if vigorous leaves have 

 been experimented with, the leaves will have folded around 

 the food and commenced their curious process of assimilation. 

 Mineral substances, such as bits of chalk, magnesia and small 

 pebbles, have no such effect. They seem to ignore these 

 things, just as an intelligent animal would if they were placed 

 by its side. Some experiments made by Mrs. Treat, several 

 summers ago, go far to confirm the statement that plants are 

 endowed with some sort of consciousness. Drosera filiformis 

 was the species used in her experiments. Some living flies 

 were pinned one-half an inch from the leaves, but near their 

 apical extremities. In forty minutes the leaves had percepti- 

 bly bent toward the flies, and in little more than an hour had 

 reached the prey, the legs of the latter being entangled and 



