334 Life and Immortality, 
known again, for it would become fixed in consciousness by 
a process of memory. That Drosera, whose habits are more 
animal-like than plant-like, must occupy a high position in 
the scale of vegetable life, there can be no reason to doubt 
from what has been said, and this assumption receives a 
most remarkable confirmation from the fact that there are 
evidences, not apparent however, of a sort of nervous system 
in its make-up, as shown by the discovery of Darwin that by 
pricking acertain point in a leaf one-half of its substance 
becomes paralyzed. 
Wonderful as these facts are, yet they are not more so 
than some recent discoveries made by Stahl while studying 
the simple movements and physical conditions of certain 
low plants called Myxomycetes. In their young stages these 
plants wander from the parts of the deposit on which they 
are creeping, and which are gradually drying up, toward 
those which are more moist. It is possible, by bringing 
moist bodies in proximity to any ramifications, to produce 
pseudopodia, which lift themselves from the deposit, and 
soon come into contact with the moist object, so as to enable 
the whole mass of the plasmodium, that is, the large, motile, 
membranous protoplasmic body formed by the coalescence 
of the swarm-spores of the Myxomycetes, to migrate thereon. 
But on the entrance of the plasmodia into the fructifying 
condition, the Myxomycete quits the moist deposit, technic- 
ally called the substratum, and creeps upwards on to the sur- 
face of dry objects. Unequal distribution of warmth in the 
substratum and unequal supplies of oxygen and chemical 
substances soluble in water also cause locomotion in these 
strange organisms. Let the plasmodia come into contact on 
one side with solutions of saltpetre, carbonate of potash or 
common salt,and they at once withdraw from the dangerous 
spot ; but an infusion of tan, or a dilute solution of sugar, 
causes a flow of the protoplasm and an ultimate transloca- 
tion of the entire plasmodial mass towards the source of 
nourishment. Some solutions have an attractive or repulsive 
