340 Life and Immortality. 



presumptuous commentator who would dare to challenge 

 such an array of competence, many beautiful surprises 

 await the traveller among the dewy shadows. Whoever has 

 made such a journey will not only return with the conscious- 

 ness that he has doubled his possessions, but that he has 

 also explored a new world a realm which he can look in 

 the face on the morrow with an exchange of recognition 

 that was truly impossible yesterday. 



Whether or not all the facts that have been adduced show 

 that plants are conscious organisms in the particulars for 

 which it is claimed, jt matters not, for enough have been set 

 forth to demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt the posi- 

 tion that they are endowed with a consciousness, no matter 

 how infinitesimally small a part it plays in nature. Every- 

 day observation of the botanist teaches the fact. Sensation, 

 which is consciousness, has preceded in time and in history 

 the evolution of the greater part of plants and animals, uni- 

 cellular and multicellular, and, therefore, if kinetogenesis, or 

 the doctrine of the effects of molar motion, be true, " con- 

 sciousness," as Cope alleges, " has been essential to a rising 

 scale of organic evolution." Animals which do not perform 

 simple acts of self-preservation must necessarily, sooner or 

 later, perish. Impossible it is to understand how the lowest 

 forms of life, wholly dependent as they are on physical con- 

 ditions of many kinds, should to-day exist if they were not 

 possessed of some degree of consciousness under stimuli at 

 least. We have but to picture to ourselves the condition of 

 a vertebrate, without general or special sensation, would we 

 obtain a clear perception of the essentiality of consciousness 

 to its existence. If now use, as has been maintained, has 

 modified structure, and so, in cooperation with the environ- 

 ment, has directed evolution, we can understand the origin 

 and development of useful organs, and also how, by para- 

 sitism, or some other mode of gaining a livelihood without 

 exertion, the adoption of new and skilful movements would 

 be unnecessary, and consciousness itself seldom aroused, 



