366 



NA TURE 



[Sept. 3, 1874 



victions ascribed by Pope to his untutored savage, that when he 

 passed to the realms of the blessed "his faithful dog should bear 

 him company." In fact, all these accessory questions to which 

 I have referred involve problems which cannot be discussed by 

 physical science, inasmuch as they do not lie within the scope of 

 physical science, but come into the province of that great mother 

 of all science, Philosophy. Before any direct answer can be 

 given upon any of these questions we must hear what Philo- 

 sophy has to say for or against the views that may be held. I 

 need hardly say — especially having detained you so long as I 

 find I have done — that I do not propose to enter into that region 

 of discussion, and I might, properly enough, finish what I have 

 to say upon the subject — especially as I have reached its natural 

 limits — if it were not that an experience, now, I am sorry to say, 

 extending over a good many years, leads me to anticipate that 

 what I have brought before you to-night is not likely to escape 

 the fate which, upon many occasions within my recollection, has 

 attended statements of scientific doctrine and of the conclusions 

 towards which science is tending, which have been made in a spirit 

 intended at any rate to be as calm and as judicial as that in which 

 I have now laid these facts before you. I do not doubt that the 

 fate which has befallen better men will befall me, and that I 

 shall have to bear in patience the reiterated assertion that doc- 

 trines such as I have put before you have very evil tendencies. I 

 should not wonder if you were to be told by persons speaking with 

 authority — not, perhaps, with that authority which is based upon 

 knowledge and wisdom, but still with authority — that my intention 

 in bringing this subject before you is to lead you to apply the doc- 

 trine I have stated, to man as well as biutes, and it will then 

 certainly be further asserted that the logical tendency of such a 

 doctrine is Fatalism, Materialism, and Atheism. Now, let me ask 

 you to listen to another product of that long experience to which 

 I referred. Logical consequences are very important ; but in the 

 course of my experience I have found that they are the scare- 

 crows of fools and the beacons of wise men. Logical conse- 

 quences can take care of themselves. The only question for any 

 man to ask is — " Is this doctrine true, or is it false? " No other 

 question can possibly be taken into consideration until that one 

 is settled. And, as I have said, the logical consequences of doc- 

 trines can only serve as a warning to wise men to ponder well 

 whether the doctrine submitted for their consideration be true or 

 not, and to test it in every possible direction. Undoubtedly I do 

 hold that the view I have taken of the relations between the 

 physical and mental faculties of brutes applies in its fulness and 

 entirety to man ; and if it were true that the logical consequences 

 of that belief must land me in all these terrible consequences, I 

 should not hesitate in allowing myself to be so landed. I should 

 conceive that if I refused I should have done the greatest and 

 most abommable violence to everything which is deepest in my 

 moral nature. Ijut now I beg leave to say that, in my conviction, 

 there is no such logical connection as is pretended between 

 the doctrine I accept and the consequences which people 

 profess to draw from it. Some years ago I had occasion, 

 in dealing with the philosophy of Descartes, and some other 

 matters, to state my conviction pretty fully on those sub- 

 jects, and, although I know from experience how futile it is to 

 endeavour to escape from those nicknames which many people 

 mistake for argument, yet, if those who care to investigate these 

 questions in a spirit of candour and justice will look into those 

 writings of mine, they will see my reasons for not imagining that 

 such conclusions can be drawn from such premises. To those 

 who do not look into these matters with candour and with a 

 desire to know the truth, I have nothing whatever to say, except 

 to warn them on their owm behalf what they do ; for assuredly 

 if, for preaching such doctrine as I have preached to you to-night, 

 I am cited before the bar of public opinion, I shall not stand 

 there alone. On my one hand I shall have, among theologians, 

 St. Augustine, John Calvin, and a man whose name should lie 

 well known to the Presbyterians of Ulster — ^Jonathan Edwards — 

 unless, indeed, it be the fashion to neglect the study of the great 

 masters of divinity, as many other great studies are neglected 

 nowadays ; and I .should have upon my other hand, among 

 philosophers, Leibnitz ; I should have Pcrc Malebranche, who 

 saw all things in God ; I should have David Hartley, the theo- 

 logian as well as philosopher ; I should have Cliarles lionnet, 

 the eminent naturalist, and one of the most zealous defenders 

 Christianity has ever had. I think I should have, within easy 

 reach, at any rate, John Locke. Certainly the school of Descartes 

 would be there, if not their master ; and I am inclined to think 

 that, in due justice, a citation would have to be served upon 

 Immanuel Kant himself. In such society it may be better to be 



a prisoner than a judge ; but I would ask those who are likely 

 to be influenced by the din and clamour which are raised about 

 these questions, whether they are more likely to be right in 

 assuming that those great men I have mentioned — the fathers of 

 the Church and the fathers of Philosophy — knew wliat they were 

 about ; or that the pigmies who raise the din know better than 

 they did what they meant. It is not necessary for any man to 

 occupy himself with problems of this kind unless he so choose. 

 Life is full enough, filled to the brim, by the performance of its 

 ordinary duties ; but let me warn you, let me beg you to believe, 

 that if a man elect to give a judgment upon these gieat ques- 

 tions ; still more, if he assume to himself the responsibUity of 

 attaching praise or blame to his fellow-men for the judgments 

 which they may venture to express — then, unless he would commit 

 a sin more grievous than most of the breaches of the Decalogue, 

 he must avoid a lazy reliance upon the information that is 

 gathered by prejudice and filtered through passion. Let him go 

 to those great sources that are open to him as to every one, and 

 to no man more open than to an Englishman ; let him go back 

 to the facts of nature, and to the thoughts of those wise men 

 who for generations past have been the interpreters of nature. 



THE CARNIVOROUS HABITS OF PLANTS* 



I H,\VE chosen for the subject of my address to you from the 

 chair in which the Council of the British Association has done 

 me the honour of placing me, the carnivorous habits of some of 

 our brother-organisms — Plants. 



Various observers have described with more or less accuracy 

 the habits of such vegetable sportsmen as the Sundew, the 

 Venus's Fly-trap, and the Pitcher-plants, but few have inquired 

 into their motives ; and the views of those who have most 

 accurately appreciated these have not met with that general 

 acceptance which they deserved. 



t^uite recently the subject has acquired a new interest, from 

 the researches of Mr. Darwin into the phenomena which ac- 

 company the placing albuminous substances on the leaves of 

 Drosera and Pinguicula, and which, in the opinion of a very 

 eminent physiologist, prove, in the case of Dion^a, that this plant 

 digests exactly the same substances and in exactly the same way 

 that the human stomach does. With these researches Mr. 

 Darwin is still actively engaged, and it has been with the view of 

 rendering him such aid as my position and opportunities at Kew 

 afforded me, that I have, under his instructions, examined some 

 other carnivorous plants. 



In the course of my inquiries I have been led to look into the 

 early history of the whole subject, which I find to be so little 

 known and so interesting that I have thought that a sketch of 

 it, up to the date of Mr. Darwin's investigations, might prove 

 acceptable to the members of this Association. In drawuig it 

 up, I have been obliged to limit myself to the most important 

 plants ; and with regard to such of these as Mr. Darwin has 

 studied, I leave it to him to announce the discoveries which, with 

 his usual frankness, he has communicated to me and to other 

 friends ; whilst with regard to those which I have myself studied, 

 Sarracenia and Nepentlies, I shall brielly detail such of my ob- 

 servations and experiments as seem to be the most suggestive. 



Dioncca. — About 176S Ellis, a well-known English naturalist, 

 sent to Linnreus a drawing of a plant, to which he gave the 

 poetical name of Dioni"ea. "In the year 1765," he writes, " our 

 late worthy friend, Mr. Peter Collinson, sent me a dried speci- 

 men of this curious plant, which he had received from Mr. John 

 Bartram, of Philadelphia, botanist to the late King." Ellis 

 flowered the plant in his chambers, having obtained living 

 specimens from America. I will .read tlie account which he 

 gave of it to Linnx-us, and which moved tlie great naturalist to 

 declare that, though he had seen and examined no small number 

 of plants, he had never met with so wonderful a phenomenon : — 



' ' The plant, EUis says, shows that Nature may have some 

 views towards its nourisnment, in forming the upper joint of its 

 leaf like a machine to catch food ; upon the middle of this lies 

 the bait for the unhappy insect that becomes its prey. Many 

 minute red glands that cover its surface, and which jierhaps 

 discharge sweet liquor, tempts the animal to taste them ; and the 

 instant these tender parts are irritated by its feet, the two lobes 

 rise up, grasp it fast, lock the rows of spines together, and 

 squeeze it to death. And further, lest the strong efforts lor life 

 in the creature just taken should serve to disengage it, three 



* Address in the Dep-'U-tment of Zoolog>' and Botany, British Association, 

 Belfast. August 21, by Dr. Hooker, C.B., D.C.L., Pres. R.S. 



