CHAPTER XXII 



SENSATION IN PLANTS VITAL ENERGY IN THE 

 ETHER ANIMAL LIFE INCUBATION OF THE 

 EGO PROGRESSIVE CHANGES THEREIN. 



IN describing the simplest organisms that manifest 

 life, it was pointed out that no sharp dividing line 

 exists between animal and plant life, and that it is 

 often difficult, if not impossible, to say whether 

 certain forms should be classed in one or in the other 

 categories. The vulgar conception that recognized 

 an animal as the only being with an innate potency 

 of translatory motion is known to be erroneous. 

 Not only have the lower forms of plant life the power 

 of motion from place to place, but inversely many 

 animals among the much higher orders are immutably 

 fixed, often with less power of moving even any 

 portion of their body than a flower possesses in the 

 act of opening or closing its petals. Nor may the 

 mental attributes of animals be totally denied to 

 plants. They seem to possess in the lower, as well 

 as in the higher orders, a certain consciousness, a self- 

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