Consciousness in Plants. 



331 



resistance is overcome, there seems to be some diversity of 

 opinion among physiologists and metaphysicians, but it is 

 generally believed that some such mental state as a sensation 

 or a desire, which may or may not stimulate a -natural proc- 

 ess as an intervening element in the circuit, is concerned in 

 its subduement. That sense-perceptions are stimuli to the 

 immediate appearance of structural changes or movements 

 is shown by the production of color-changes in animals 

 through changes in the condition of the organs of sight and 



TIP OF RADICLE OF SEEDLING MAPLE. 

 Lower Cells Show Where Consciousness is Supposed to Reside. 



in the bending of the radicle of a seedling-plant a short 

 distance above its tip in obedience to a communication from 

 the tip of a sensation of hardness, caused by contact with a 

 stone experienced in its downward progress in the ground. 

 New conditions bring forth new acts in animals. No one 

 can deny this statement, as instances of its truth are too fre- 

 quent to believe otherwise. That such may be predicated of 

 plants, which have not the ability, as a rule, to meet with 

 new conditions by reason of their being affixed to the soil, 



