20 CAN PLANTS FEEL? 



backs to the horses.' But how was this novelty estab- 

 lished? It baffles understanding to explain it by 

 evolution. Must we have recourse, as some profound 

 investigators seem inclined to do in other biological 

 problems, to the direct intervention of a controlling 

 Power, who has arranged this unique expedient in order 

 to secure the perpetuation of one of the humblest and 

 apparently least valuable of mammals ? 



VII 



The antivivisectionists we have always with us, and 

 can plants fc hey ta ^e effective means to prevent us over- 

 feei? looking their presence the startling question 



which appears as heading to a serious scientific article 

 in the Monthly Review (September 1905) seems to 

 indicate that, for consistency's sake, they must shortly 

 enlarge their field of operations. To the question ' Can 

 plants feel ? ' Mr. G. Clarke Nuttall declares that he can 

 return no answer but an affirmative. 



Hitherto it has been the exclusive privilege of poets, 

 sacred and profane, to deal with flowers and trees as 

 sentient beings, thereby incurring the censure of John 

 Ruskin, who used to trample in his delectable manner 

 upon what he termed the Pathetic Fallacy, whereby 

 moods and motives are imputed to inanimate objects, 

 corresponding to our own fluctuations of spirit. 



' The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould, 

 Naked and shivering with its cup of gold.' 



'The crocus,' commented Ruskin, 'is not a spendthrift, 

 but a hardy plant; its yellow is not gold, but saffron.' 

 (Saffron! quotha: no purer gold surely in nature.) As 



