114 THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION 



apparatus are particularly favourably placed in the 

 organism, and their entire anatomical structure shows 

 clearly that their object is that the external influences 

 shall act vigorously and directly upon the right spot. 

 Does this afford any proof that the actions, which 

 are produced by such 'organs/ are accompanied by 

 consciousness ? 



Quite certainly this is not the case. According to 

 Haberlandt himself a similar capacity for perception 

 of mechanical excitation exists in other plants, but 

 ' diffused ' for instance in all the cells of a leaf or 

 leaf tissue or stalk. 1 The development of particularly 

 localized apparatus with the exclusive function of 

 responding to excitation increases, it is true, the general 

 ' faculty of perception ' and can be adapted to special 

 purposes as, for instance, sudden and powerful move- 

 ments, but it alters the nature of the excitability 

 absolutely not at all. 



So long, therefore, as it is not shown that 'excit- 

 ability ' implies quite general ' psychical ' qualities, 

 there is, by those organs, nothing gained at all for 

 the acceptance of conscious vital phenomena in plants. 

 A careful study of the illustrations enables us also to 

 recognize without difficulty the typical form of reflex 

 mechanism, not only in the organs for mechanical 

 stimuli but also those of gravity and light. 



Furthermore Haberlandt quite emphatically remarks 

 that for him the ' psychical ' side of the sensitiveness 

 ' is an accompanying or parallel phenomenon outside 



1 Physioloyische Pflanzenanaiomie, p. 520. 



