IN BORNEAN FORESTS [chap. 



thought of the possibility of an individual entity (anima) presiding 

 over the entire organism. A plant was considered not as a living 

 thing, but as a composite mechanism in which the cells acted much 

 as the parts of a machine. But we now know that the particles of 

 protoplasm enclosed in an involucrum of cellulose, i.e., living cells, 

 of which plants are formed, are endowed, at least at times, with a 

 vitality which is perfectly comparable to that of animal cells. To 

 those who have not followed carefully the results of recent investi- 

 gation such an assertion will appear absurd, for in plants outward 

 manifestations of any such vitality are wanting, and they cannot 

 move. But the common notion regarding the want of movement 

 in plants is a fallacy. In the living, or, as one may term it, the 

 animated parts of plants, protoplasm moves and can change its 

 place ; indeed, in some, if not in all, in certain parts and at certain 

 moments, the protoplasm circulates continually, being sensible to 

 the stimuli of light, heat, and even touch ; therefore it might with 

 some approach to accuracy be argued that plants can even see and 

 feel. 



Living cells which react to stimuli may be looked upon as nerve 

 cells, and plants are provided with such cells in almost every part of 

 their organism. Darwin has compared the ends of roots in plants 

 to the brain of animals ; but I think that the comparison can be 

 extended even further, for it appears to me that many of the living 

 cells of plants have a great analogy to nerve cells. Few indeed are 

 aware of the activity and sensibility of certain plant cells. And 

 yet all the roots, the internal layers of the bark, the nervures of the 

 leaves, and the flowers abound in such. The so-called soft-bark or 

 phloema (perhaps the most important portion of the entire vegetable 

 organism) is made up of cells which are extremely excitable and 

 very much alive. Indeed, we have every reason to believe that these 

 cells are in direct communication with each other, and with the 

 entire vegetable organism to which they belong, by means of very 

 slender filaments, analogous to those of nerve cells. In the proto- 

 plasm of plants, as in that of animals, are included all those mys- 

 terious forces which represent the vital patrimony of the past, and 

 which have to be transmitted to the future, a fact which is amply 

 shown in the phenomena which accompany sexual reproduction in 

 the beings belonging to both the vegetable and the animal kingdom. 

 This alone would be quite sufficient to show the uniformity of the 

 laws which rule matter throughout the entire organic world. 



What numberless obscure vital phenomena run their course, 

 motionless and in silence, under the shadow of these ancient trees, 

 and to what an infinity of microscopic beings does not the death of 

 one of these giants give birth ? How can one picture the vast hosts 

 of these creatures peopling the soil and air, the roots, trunks, 

 flowers, and fruits, and realise their metamorphoses, their habits, 



74 



