340 Life and Inmortality. 
presumptuous commentator who would dare to challenge 
such an array of competence, many beautiful surprises 
await the traveller among the dewy shadows. Whoever has 
made such a journey will not only return with the conscious- 
ness that he has doubled his possessions, but that he has 
also explored a new world—a realm which he can look in 
the face on the morrow with an exchange of recognition 
that was truly impossible yesterday. 
Whether or not all the facts that have been adduced show 
that plants are conscious organisms in the particulars for 
which it is claimed, it matters not, for enough have been set 
forth to demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt the posi- 
tion that they are endowed with a consciousness, no matter 
how infinitesimally small a part it plays in nature. Every- 
day observation of the botanist teaches the fact. Sensation, 
which is consciousness, has preceded in time and in history 
the evolution of the greater part of plants and animals, uni- 
cellular and multicellular, and, therefore, if kinetogenesis, or 
the doctrine of the effects of molar motion, be true, “ con- 
sciousness,” as Cope alleges, “has been essential to a rising 
scale of organic evolution.” Animals which do not perform 
simple acts of self-preservation must necessarily, sooner or 
later, perish. Impossible it is to understand how the lowest 
forms of life, wholly dependent as they are on physical con- 
ditions of many kinds, should to-day exist if they were not 
possessed of some degree of consciousness under stimuli at 
least. We have but to picture to ourselves the condition of 
a vertebrate, without general or special sensation, would we 
obtain a clear perception of the essentiality of consciousness 
to its existence. If now use, as has been maintained, has 
modified structure, and so, in cooperation with the environ- 
ment, has directed evolution, we can understand the origin 
and development of useful organs, and also how, by para- 
sitism, or some other mode of gaining a livelihood without 
exertion, the adoption of new and skilful movements would 
be unnecessary, and consciousness itself seldom aroused, 
