I 



26 PHYSICAL CAUSES. 



although the same facts resulting from precisely the same cause in 

 animals, no one doubts to be intelligence and that, too, oftentimes of a 

 high order. Here, as with instinct in animals, all phenomena of this 

 kind, not understood, are referred by the wholesale to "physical 

 causes." It must be admitted, however, by all advocates of physical 

 causes, under such or any other circumstances, that no evidence either 

 of sensation or of intelligence is, or can be manifested in man or 

 lower animals without physical causes. The distinction therefore 

 fails. Nerves, or a brain, are essential both to sensation and intelli- 

 gence and these are physical agents ; hence the existence and opera- 

 tion of physical causes are as essential to the production of an effect in 

 animals as they are in producing an effect in vegetables. No indi- 

 vidual of either the animal or vegetable kingdom wills or acts without 

 the agency of a physical cause. The sensitive plant that trembles 

 and shrinks at the approach of danger, or the Dionce that seizes its 

 enemy with its leaves and wills, if you please, to close its parts for pro- 

 tection, does so through the agency of physical causes, and so does an 

 animal act for like reason. If no physical effect were produced on 

 the nerves of animals, either through sight, sound, or external sensa- 

 tion at the approach of a body, no will, act, or motion would be 

 produced, as the result of fear, or for any other reason. Call these 

 phenomena by whatever name we please, it is the same in both animals 

 and vegetables. The feeble and apparently conscious tendril, that 

 seeks to elevate itself and adopts various and curious expedients to 

 obtain its objects, acts from some cause within itself, or it would not 

 act at all. If this is not from a consciousness of its wants, what is 

 the cause of its action ? Is it that objects at a great distance, (to 

 which it often goes, avoiding intermediate and apparently better 

 support,) possesses some unknown physical power of attraction ? If 

 so, that power has the same effect on its organs that it would have on 

 those of animals, and no more. But this is not offered as a reason 

 for the apparent preference which the tendril manifests. How then 

 can it know that one object is better than another for the accomplish- 

 ment of its purposes for purpose it has, or it would not seek, on 

 account of its conscious feeble nature, any object to sustain its growth, 

 much less take so much apparent pains to seek that which is best. 



But we have thrown out these remarks rather to awaken attention 

 to the physiology of plants and to induce their careful study, rather 

 than to advance any new views or to controvert those of others. There 

 is, however, a descrepancy in the opinions of some who, whilst they 

 assert the stale opinions of others, venture to determine what they 

 profess not to understand in vegetable life. This subject is to be 

 approached, like all others, for the purpose of arriving at truth and 

 not for the establishment of previous opinions or favorite theories. 



