20 



seems to lie in contractions of the protoplasm which bounds the 

 channels in which they flow, but which are so minute that the 

 best microscopes show only their effects and not themselves. 



In plant or animal, heat and electric shocks cause 

 contractility in the same way and under similar con- 

 ditions. This primal form is subject to laws of vital- 

 ity and growth such as is seen in more complicated 

 physical existences. It has in it these potentialities, 

 and the experiments of eminent scientists go to show 

 that electrical shock causes contraction of many of the 

 first^organized forms of life, and it is fair to infer it in 

 all, were our knowledge extended. In a paper recently 

 read before the Royal Society it was clearly shown 

 that such })lants as those of the Dionoea genus especially 

 the Venus Hy-trap not only secrete a juice as solvent 

 as the gastric fluid and capable of performing the 

 same work, but in the contraction of the lobes of this 

 pitcher plant upon its food it gives out an appreciable 

 current of electricity at every closure analogous to that 

 obtained from the nerves and muscles of animals. 



This also explains the flow of fluids against the laws 

 of gravitation and which are vaguely stated to flow on 

 account of the chemical reaction between the external 

 moisture and the internal juices of the ])lants, excited 

 in some way by atmospheric disturbance. This re- 

 sponse to stinudation is analogous to that seen in the 

 / animal economy : even the change of direction of this 

 . fluid modifies and varies its action. 



If a current of electricity be passed from the neigh- 

 borhood of the nerve centres towards their ramifica- 

 tions, the I'esult is violent contracti-jn of muscle. 



A current sent from the peripheral loops in a con- 

 trary direction will cause great pain, but only slight 

 contraction. The power and medium are the same in ]>oth 

 cases, l)ut there is uo doubt that the polar conditions 



