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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
do wed with definite plant-like characteristics . Thus then do the 
vistas of animal and plant life converge towards one another. 
“ In a problem such as this we can only deduce conclusions by 
inference and presume similarity in those of our own kind. We 
can say that others have similar feelings to our own because (they 
act in a similar way to us under similar circumstances — we can 
never directly test their feelings. And as we work backwards 
from man there is no single place at which we can stop and say : 
“there is no -sensation here.” For wherever there as life there 
is adjustment to environment — response to external stimuli — 
and there is no point in the sequence of animal life at wbidh we 
can assert that the response of any individual is purely that of 
an automaton. 
“And it is this question, the question, ‘Are plants sentient?’ 
that plant students are asking more and more closely to-day 
about the whole plant kingdom in general. For some of (the 
forms of plant-life exhibit so close an analogy to animals in their 
apparent possession of sensation that, since the sequence of life 
is unbroken in the organic world, it seems an arbitrary distinction 
to allow the attribute in one part of the sequence and deny it in 
another. Some observers, indeed, go even further, and are be- 
ginning to wonder whether or not it is not possible ithat plants 
■may be actually guided by some form of intelligence, an intelli- 
gence diffused indeed, and not gathered up into a brain focus, 
but nevertheless present in some general form. Certain of those 
who are well-fitted to judge, even make definite affirmations on 
the point. Thus Professor Shaler, of Harvard University, recent- 
ly declared that : ‘ we are in no position to say that intelligence 
cannot exist among plants, for in fact, all that we can discern 
supports the view that throughout the organic realm the intelli- 
gence that finds its fullest expression in man is everywhere at 
work.’ 
“But whether we are justified in presuming intelligence in 
plants or not, the contention that plants are actually endowed 
with sensation has been considerably furthered of late by some 
researches that have been made at Graz by Prof. Haberlandt, a 
German botanist of some repute. He has been studying the sub- 
ject specially among the high flowering plants, and as a result 
