54 MOVEMENTS OF PLANTS 



who concludes that mind "is always implicated 

 in Hfe." He remarks, too {ibid. p. 287): "It 

 would be hardly going too far to say that Aristotle's 

 conception of a plant-soul ... is tenable even 

 to-day, at least as tenable as any such notion can 

 be at a time when souls are out of fashion." 



This is a path of inquiry I am quite incapable 

 of pursuing. It would be safer for me to rest 

 contented with asserting that plants are vegetable 

 automata, as some philosophers are content to make 

 an automaton of Man, But I am not satisfied with 

 this resting-place. And I hope that other biologists 

 will not be satisfied with a point of view in which 

 consciousness is no more than a bye-product of 

 automatic action, and that they will in time gain a 

 definite conception of the value of consciousness in 

 the economy of living organisms. Nor can I doubt 

 that the facts discussed in these pages must 

 contribute to the foundation of this wider psycho- 

 logical outlook. 



