116 THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION 



vital phenomenon/ l The entire vital activity depends, 

 then, in animals upon their sense faculties, 2 since 

 reflex action alone would not suffice either for obtaining 

 food, or for protection against attack, or for reproduc- 

 tion. In plants, on the contrary, it is positively provided 

 for that they have always their nutrition surrounding 

 them air, water and salts in solution and that the 

 pollen reaches the female flower by self-pollination or 

 with the aid of the wind or even of insects specially 

 fitted for the office. Consciousness is here positively 

 superfluous. 



We came earlier to the conclusion that in each 

 organism a single principle is to be accepted which 

 stands above matter and utilizes its materials and 

 energies unitedly, since inorganic material never shows 

 the trace of a tendency to collect into mutually co- 

 operating systems with a purposeful division of the 

 vital functions. Now we have learnt to know of 

 organisms, the animals, into which a new factor in 

 vital activity is purposefully interposed i.e. sensible 

 recognition and voluntary power of action. That is, that 

 there is a principle, which in the dog, for instance, leads 

 and directs the life, and possesses also the sense faculties, 

 since, exactly like the other faculties, they are utilized 

 to one and the same vital end. Thus the entire f psyche ' 

 of the animal is another than that of the plants, which 

 display no consciousness. Should, therefore, a plant 



1 F. Lucas: Psychologic der niedersten Tiere, Vienna and Leipzig, 1905, 

 p. 18. 



2 See Wasmann : Die psychischen Fahigkeiten der Ameisen, 1909, p. 5. 



