PLANT CONSCIOUSNESS. 



413 



PLANT CONSCIOUSNESS. 

 By Captain Arthur Smith, F.R.H.S. 



The modern student of plant-life no longer regards the objects of his 

 study as so many things which merely demand classification and arrange- 

 ment, and whose history is exhausted when a couple of Latin or Greek 

 names have been appended to each specimen. On the contrary, the 

 botanist of to-day seeks to unravel the mysteries of plant-life. For him 

 the plant is no longer an inanimate being, but stands revealed as an 

 organism exhibiting animal functions, many of which are certainly well- 

 defined, as are the analogous traits in the existence of the animal. Plant 

 physiology has therefore become a distinct branch of natural science, and 

 every biologist who has followed it feels the difficulty which confronts 

 him in attempting to draw a line of demarcation between the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms. This difficulty is clearly shown by the fact that 

 there are certain organisms that are claimed by both zoologists and 

 botanists as belonging to their respective departments of natural 

 science. 



Every living body, both plant and animal, consists in its embryonic 

 form of a single cell ; and not only this, but the lowest plants and the 

 lowest animals are, in their full-grown mature state, merely minute single 

 cells. From this comparativly neutral starting-point, in the sense of 

 presenting the minimum amount of differentia tion, one important feature, 

 generally stated to be evolved only by members of the animal kingdom, 

 is the specialisation of structure that enables animals to feed on organic 

 matter taken into the body in a solid form. But this, as 1 shall show, 

 is not confined to animals only. A second supposed mark of distinction 

 is the possession by animals of a nervous system which has culminated in 

 the higher groups of animals in the development, not only of special 

 senses, but of sense-organs. But at the same time it must not be for- 

 gotten that many of the lower groups of organisms universally classed as 

 animals are entirely destitute of every structural trace of sense-organs 

 or nervous system. 



Although no trace of nerve- tissue has been found in any member of 

 the vegetable kingdom, yet examples of the possession of a nervous 

 system, sensibility, and consciousness are to be found in it. Many plants 

 manifest distinct movements which are responsive to external agencies, 

 these movements agreeing in important and essential points with similar 

 movements shown under similar circumstances in connection with animals, 

 and which in the latter are the outcome of nervous excitement or brain- 

 power. 



Some will naturally exclaim, " How can plants be possessed of brain- 

 power if they have neither brains nor nerve-tissue ! " And yet, amongst 

 those who have devoted any time to the observation of plant-life, few, if 

 any, will deny the existence, not only of instinct, but of a power much 

 higher, which runs very closely to that faculty of reasoning which no 



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