REV. MARTINEAU AND BELFAST ADDRESS 259 



ion. Does consciousness mix in any way with these proc- 

 esses? No man can tell. Our only ground for a negative 

 conclusion is the absence of those outward manifestations 

 from which feeling is usually inferred. But even these 

 are not entirely absent. In the greenhouses of Kew we 

 may see that a leaf can close, in response to a proper 

 stimulus, as promptly as the human fingers themselves; 

 and while there Dr. Hooker will tell us of the wondrous 

 fly-catching and fly-devouring power of the Dionaea. No 

 man can say that the feelings of the animal are not repre- 

 sented by a drowsier consciousness in the vegetable world. 

 At all events, no line has ever been drawn between the 

 conscious and the unconscious; for the vegetable shades 

 into the animal by such fine gradations that it is impos- 

 sible to say where the one ends and the other begins. 



In all such inquiries we are necessarily limited by our 

 own powers: we observe what our senses, armed with the 

 aids furnished by Science, enable us to observe; nothing 

 more. The evidences as to consciousness in the vegetable 

 world depend wholly upon our capacity to observe and 

 weigh them. Alter the capacity, and the evidence would 

 alter too. Would that which to us is a total absence of 

 any manifestation of consciousness be the same to a being 

 with our capacities indefinitely multiplied? To such a 

 being I can imagine not only the vegetable, but the min- 

 eral world, responsive to the proper irritants, the response 

 differing only in degree from those exaggerated manifesta- 

 tions, which, in virtue of their magnitude, appeal to our 

 weak powers of observation. 



Our conclusion, however, must be based, not on pow- 

 ers that we imagine, but upon those that we possess. 

 What do they reveal? As the earth and atmosphere of- 



