3 34 Life and Immortality. 



known again, for it would become fixed in consciousness by 

 a process of memory. That Drosera, whose habits are more 

 animal-like than plant-like, must occupy a high position in 

 the scale of vegetable life, there can be no reason to doubt 

 from what has been said, and this assumption receives a 

 most remarkable confirmation from the fact that there are 

 evidences, not apparent however, of a sort of nervous system 

 in its make-up, as shown by the discovery of Darwin that by 

 pricking a certain point in a leaf one-half of its substance 

 becomes paralyzed. 



Wonderful as these facts are, yet they are not more so 

 than some recent discoveries made by Stahl while studying 

 the simple movements and physical conditions of certain 

 low plants called Myxomycetes. In their young stages these 

 plants wander from the parts of the deposit on which they 

 are creeping, and which are gradually drying up, toward 

 those which are more moist. It is possible, by bringing 

 moist bodies in proximity to any ramifications, to produce 

 pseudopodia, which lift themselves from the deposit, and 

 soon come into contact with the moist object, so as to enable 

 the whole mass of the plasmodium,that is, the large, motile, 

 membranous protoplasmic body formed by the coalescence 

 of the swarm-spores of the Myxomycetes, to migrate thereon. 

 But on the entrance of the plasmodia into the fructifying 

 condition, the Myxomycete quits the moist deposit, technic- 

 ally called the substratum, and creeps upwards on to the sur- 

 face of dry objects. Unequal distribution of warmth in the 

 substratum and unequal supplies of oxygen and chemical 

 substances soluble in water also cause locomotion in these 

 strange organisms. Let the plasmodia come into contact on 

 one side with solutions of saltpetre, carbonate of potash or 

 common salt, and they at once withdraw from the dangerous 

 spot ; but an infusion of tan, or a dilute solution of sugar, 

 causes a flow of the protoplasm and an ultimate transloca- 

 tion of the entire plasmodial mass towards the source of 

 nourishment. Some solutions have an attractive or repulsive 



