Chapter XIX 
Conclusion 
ae now I bring this book to a conclusion. So many 
things requiring attention have happened since it was 
begun that I leave it in a very different shape to the one 
which it was originally intended to bear. I have omitted 
much that I had meant to deal with, and have been tempted 
sometimes to introduce matter the connection of which 
with my subject is not immediately apparent. Such 
however, as the book is, it must now go in the form into 
which it has grown almost more in spite of me than from 
malice prepense on my part. I was afraid that it might thus 
set me at defiance, and in an early chapter expressed a doubt 
whether I should find it redound greatly to my advantage 
with men of science ; in this concluding chapter I may say 
that doubt has deepened into something like certainty. 
T regret this, but cannot help it. 
Among the points with which it was most incumbent 
upon me to deal was that of vegetable intelligence. A 
reader may well say that unless I give plants much the 
same sense of pleasure and pain, memory, power of will, 
and intelligent perception of the best way in which to 
employ their opportunities that I give to low animals, my 
argument falls to the ground. If I declare organic modi- 
fication to be mainly due to function, and hence in the 
closest correlation with mental change, I must give plants, 
as well as animals, a mind, and endow them with power to 
reflect and reason upon all that most concerns them. 
Many who will feel little difficulty about admitting that 
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