DOMAIN OF EVOLUTIONARY HYPOTHESIS 115 



the scope of his investigations/ [?] For us that is not 

 the case, since here it is not a question whether the 

 plants really have organs for the reception of stimuli, 

 but whether they have sense organs. We can and must 

 separate these questions, since with us men there 

 occur purposeful excitations which happen uncon- 

 sciously (for instance reflex action), and such as we 

 voluntarily produce, with consciousness due to an 

 internal or external stimulus. 1 Among the animals also 

 we have both kinds of movements ; to the plants there- 

 fore we must apply the psychological criteria in order to 

 settle the question. That, however, was not the case 

 with Haberlandt ; his text and his illustrations permit, 

 moreover, of only the one deduction that we have to 

 deal with indubitable mechanisms, with reflex actions. 



Conclusion. There are, therefore, organisms which 

 show clear expressions of conscious vital action, of 

 sensible recognition (sensations and feelings), and striving 

 power, and others in which such expressions are never 

 observed, not even in the most imperfect state. The 

 first we call ' animals/ the second ' plants/ Conscious- 

 ness we cannot, however, regard as something of secon- 

 dary importance, since ' the entry of the conscience 

 into the series of vital phenomena must not appear 

 to us as an incomprehensible miracle but as something 

 natural and easily comprehensible, and that is the case 

 if consciousness, from the very commencement, already 

 at its first appearance has a definite task to fulfil in 

 the service of the whole organism like every other 



1 See Wasmann : Instinkt und Intelligenz im Tierreich, 1905, p. 6. 



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