CAN PLANTS FEEL?

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12633, 21 October 1905, Page 2

CAN PLANTS FEEL?

The boundary lines -which were once supposed to define the limits of each of what wear© then called the three kingdoms of nature have been long since effaced, and it is seen tihat each is but a portion of one great whole, and one stage in the progressive evolution of inorganic and organic lif© upon the surface of the globe, with mind as its shaping and directive force. An Italian scientist has discovered its presence and operation in the mineral; and ascending another step, we find, as Mr G. C. Nutall points out in the " Monthly Review," that plants have definite organs of sense in certain cases, that they possess intelligence, and exercise it in tihe choice of food, in the movement and direction of their tendrils, especially in their long and patient search for water and for light, in the motions of the sensitive plants, and in the ingenuity with which insectivorous and varnivorous plants entrap their prey. "In the light of thdse facts," observes the writer of the article, " it seems impossible to refuse to acknowledge plants as sentient beings, or to deny that they are capable of experiencing sensations. Indeed, the more we study plants, the more impressed we are with the conviction that in them we have a line of development parallel to our own, but one situated on a lower plane, whose scale is pitched in a lower key." In fact, we can only conclude that everything we behold iii Nature is in a continuous process of " becoming," ever advancing from lower to ihigher manifestations of form and function. All .is transition and advancement, and the development of intelligenoa, ■which 'lias been said to sleep in the- mineral, to dream in the vegetable and to awaken in the animal,' proceeds pad paesu with its organic progress and elevation. We speak of the instincts of plants, but " how can instincts arise," ■ t has been asked, " unless there be some kind of consciousness? For instinct is now generally regarded as the experience of the race, as distinguished from that of the individual. The registration of experience may be in itself an intelligent rather than an automatic act."