332 Life and Immortality. 
very few persons are willing to admit; but there is no get- 
ting away from the fact. The tip of the radicle of a plant 
not only has the power, acting as a brain, as it would seem, 
of guiding the root out of the reach of an obstacle that would 
be injurious, or in the direction of water when it would be 
an advantage, but a tendril has also the ability, in obedience 
to some inherent force, of making its way to a support that 
has been purposely placed in the near distance for its espe- 
cial benefit. No external agencies, which the materialistic 
naturalist has devised for accounting for the movements of 
plants and low types of animal existences that are devoid of 
a visible nervous system, can possibly explain these move- 
ments, which are only explicable on the theory that nervous 
energy may be elaborated and be distributed without such a 
system by and through the general mass of the plant or 
animal, or by and through such parts as may be necessary 
to its good. 
No one who has experimented with the Droseras or Sun- 
dews, can have failed to observe the extreme sensitiveness 
which resides in their leaves. That these plants manifest a 
comparatively high order of consciousness, there can be no 
question. Try them with insects, or rare bits of meat, as 
articles of diet, and in a few hours, if vigorous leaves have 
been experimented with, the leaves will have folded around 
the food and commenced their curious process of assimilation. 
Mineral substances, such as bits of chalk, magnesia and small 
pebbles, have no such effect. They seem to ignore these 
things, just as an intelligent animal would if they were placed 
by its side. Some experiments made by Mrs. Treat, several 
summers ago, go far to confirm the statement that plants are 
endowed with some sort of consciousness. Drosera filiforimis 
was the species used in her experiments. Some living flies 
were pinned one-half an inch from the leaves, but near their 
apical extremities. In forty minutes the leaves had percepti- 
bly bent toward the flies, and in little more than an hour had 
reached the prey, the legs of the latter being entangled and 
