Chapter XI: Part 11

Strange and unique as are the plants and animals of Australia, yet nothing definite can be affirmed of its native human inhabitants. They are a peculiar people, separated by a wide remove from the Papuans, the Malays and the Negro. Of a dark, coffee-brown complexion, rather than actually black, the Australian is but little inferior to the average European in height, but is altogether of a much slimmer and feebler build, his limbs, particularly, being very lean and destitute of calves, a defect which is a peculiarity of the darker races of man. His head is long and narrow, dolichocephalic in type, with a low brow, prominent just above the orbital regions, but receding thence in a very marked degree. The nose, proceeding from a comparatively narrow base, broadens outwardly to a somewhat squat end, the eyes on each side of its attenuated root appearing drawn together. His face bulges into high cheek bones; his mouth is large and grotesque, the jaw-bone contracted, the upper jaw projecting over the lower, but with fine, white teeth; the chin cut away, and his ears slightly pricked forward. Not only the head and face, but the entire body as well, is covered with a profusion of hair, which, when freed of its enclogging dirt and oil, is soft and glossy. Like most savage peoples, the effluvium of his skin, offensive as it naturally is, is very much exaggerated by the fish-oil he uses in the anointment of his person.

Almost exclusively directed on the means of procuring sustenance, the intellect of the Australian operates wholly within the range of the rudest bodily senses. But inside that simple, elementary sphere he displays no little nimbleness and dexterity. In tracking and running down his prey he is unsurpassed. His weapons, though of the most primitive forms, are well adapted for the purposes of the chase. Rude and uncouth as his culinary and domestic apparatus appear, yet they serve equally well the objects for which they were designed. Some imitative facility, or rude sense of elementary art, is possessed by him, as is evidenced by the crude figures of sharks, lizards and other animals that may be seen carved in caves in the north-east of Australia, and on the rocks of New South Wales. That he has some exuberance of rude sense is still further shown in his language, which, within its very circumscribed sensuous sphere, is fairly expressive and complete, and likewise in the ease with which he learns to chatter the languages of peoples with whom he has been thrown into contact.

Outside the circle described, all is blank to the Australian. He has no architecture, no pottery and almost no weaving, and may be said to have no religion. His sensations may scarcely, if at all, be said to have attained the dignity of sentiments, much less that of sentimentalities. The man domineers over the woman, who is as much his property as his boomerang or dingo. Male offspring are held in considerable estimation, and a father will bewail the death of a son for months, and even for years. Old men and old, infirm women, on the other hand, are cruelly abandoned, and left to starve to death, for they are considered worthless and a burden, and consumers of the food that should go to the support of the young and physically strong. During the summer they roam about naked, utterly strangers to shame, which seems not to be innate to their natures. Wives are accounted an item in a man’s chattels, the stealing of which being met with some definite punishment. Caves, where they abound, afford shelter and security for some of the tribes, but where these are not found, screens of twigs and bushes covered with leaves or turf, or logs of wood and turf, serve for protection and cover for a few days or weeks, till the pursuit of food calls them elsewhere.

Returned from the Chase with Kangaroo.]

Thrift is unknown to the Australian. His life alternates between satiety and semi-starvation. In summer he goes naked, but in winter he wraps himself in kangaroo skins. A girdle of hair bound about his loins holds his dowak, as his digging-stick is called, and an apron of skins suspended from the girdle affords a protection from shrubs. His food consists largely of animals, which he devours alive, and includes lizards, snakes, the heads being rejected, frogs, white ants, larvæ and moths. Other animals are roasted, showing that the Australian knows, contrary to an opinion that once prevailed, the method of kindling a fire. In seasons of dearth, when there is a paucity of food-material, cannibalism is general. He then makes an attack upon a neighboring tribe who is his enemy, and if he cannot obtain food in this manner, he scruples not to fall back upon his wife and his children. One obligation of the wife is to keep her husband supplied with vegetable food, such as the roots of the wild yam, seeds of the acacia, sophoræ, leaves of the grass-tree, etc. Failing to produce a sufficiency, she is liberally treated with maulings and spearings, so that a wife generally appears bruised and gashed all over her body.

Among the different tribes of Australians, the boomerang is the principal weapon. This is a flat stick, three feet in length, and curves at the centre. It is thrown into the air among birds, jerks in a zigzag, spiral or circular fashion, and when thrown by a person skilled in its use is sure to bring down a few individuals at every throwing. Besides this weapon they have the throwing-stick, flint-pointed spears, shields, stone-hatchets, digging-sticks, netting-needles, nets of sinews, fibres or hairs, water-skins and canoes.

No government exists among this people outside that of the family, and no laws except certain traditionary rules about property. As for their religion, they have little save their terror of ghosts and demons, and certain superstitious traditional rites applicable to epochs in a man’s life, but more especially so at the time of his burial. At ten years of age, a boy is covered with blood; at ten to fourteen, he is circumcised in the north and south of Australia, but not in the west or on the Murray River; and at twenty, he is tattooed or scarred. Felicity after death is the reward of proper burial, but a man dying in battle or rotting in a field becomes an evil genius.

No more perfect example of tribal organization exists than that of the tribes of Australasia. In a very large proportion of existing tribes, the tribe is an aggregate of several stocks or distinct bodies of kindred, the persons composing the tribes being included in stocks which are, or are accounted, distinct from each other. Two tribal customs, namely, the prohibition of marriage between persons of the same stock, and the reckoning of kinship through females only, so that children are accounted of the stock of their mother, sustain this organization. Persons of the same stock, too, owe duties to each other, and are to some extent participants in each other’s liabilities. An injury done by a man is an injury done by his stock, which may be avenged upon any member thereof; or an injury done to a man is an injury done by his stock, for which every member of it is bound to seek vengeance. As a consequence of these customs, a husband must be of a different stock from his wife or wives, and therefore must be accounted of a different stock from his children; and if he has wives of different stocks, then their respective children are accounted of different stocks. More than one stock, it will thus be perceived, is represented in every household. And since a man owes duties to his stock--the duties of acknowledged blood-relationship--while to those of his family who are not of his stock, there being nothing but the accident of birth to unite him, it necessarily follows that the family among these tribes has very little cohesion.

Wholly sensuous is the language of the Australian, their abstraction tending only in the way of arithmetic as far as the number five, and that itself being quite an unusual stretch. Polysyllabic as it is in formation, and having the accent on the penultimate, it is not at all inharmonious. Though it comprehends many divergent forms, yet they seem to be all fundamentally connected, constituting a group entirely isolated from any of the linguistic families of the other parts of the world. Within its narrow confines the language is well developed and sensuously copious and expressive.

Like almost all other savages, the native Australians are rapidly disappearing before the spread of civilization. The European settlers crowd them out of all the more fertile and habitable lands, pressing them more and more into the desert of the interior, where they find it exceedingly hard to obtain in their roving, unsettled lives the necessary means of subsistence. Great numbers are thus forced to succumb to deprivations not of their own bringing, and not a few to the diseases and vices brought among them by the new possessors of their domains. The lowest estimate of their number, prior to the settlement of Europeans among them, gives over 150,000, but the natives still surviving scarcely figure one-half of that population. It is only a question of a decade or two when the Australian, like the Tasmanian, who was once his near neighbor, will have vanished from off the face of the country, leaving behind him his implements of war and the chase, his culinary and domestic apparatus, and the rude carvings of his hands in caves and in rocks, as the principal evidences of his earthly existence.

By competent critics the Australian is pronounced to be the most degraded of human beings, and the lowest type of man. In reason, love, generosity, conscience and mere responsibility he is the inferior of many of the lower animals, and in the erection of a house for comfort, shelter and security he is surpassed by creatures even as low in the scale as the worms and insects. It is true, when hunger has to be met, that he has shown some skill in the manufacture of implements necessary to the obtainment of his food, and also in resisting the attacks of his own kind and of the natural enemies by which he is surrounded. There is no doubt that he is well satisfied with his condition in life, and could hardly be induced to exchange it for another. He has doubtless fulfilled the purpose of his being in the world, and unable to cope in the struggle for existence with a superior civilization must succumb to the latter which is better fitted to endure, a sad but impressive lesson which is the teaching of every chapter of the world’s geologic story.

LIVING SOULS.

All things were made by the Word of God. In this Word was life, spirit or energy. Without it was not anything made that was made. Hence, says Elihu, “the _Spirit_ of God hath made me, and the _breath_ of the Almighty hath given me _life_;” or, as Moses testifies, “the Lord God formed man, the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives; and _man_ became _a_ LIVING SOUL.”

Now, if it be asked what the Scriptures define a living soul to be, the answer is a living natural, or animal body, whether of beasts, birds, fish or men. The phrase living creature is the exact synonyme of living soul. The words _nephesh chayiah_ are in Hebrew the signs of the ideas expressed by Moses, _nephesh_ signifying _creature_, _life_, _soul_, or _breathing frame_ from the verb _breathe_, and _chayiah_, a noun from the verb _to live_, _of life_. _Nephesh chayiah_ is the genus which includes all species of living creatures. In the common version of the Scriptures, it is rendered _living soul_, and, therefore, under this form of expression they speak of all flesh which breathes in air, earth and sea.

From the evidence adduced a man then is merely a body of life in the sense of his being an animal or living creature--_nephesh chayiah adam_. Therefore, as a natural man, he has no preëminence over the creatures God has made. Moses makes no distinction between him and them, for he calls them all living souls, breathing the breath of lives. His language, literally rendered, says, “and God said, the waters shall produce abundantly _sheretz chayiah nephesh_ the _reptile living soul_;” and again, “_kal nephesh chayiah erameshat_ every living soul creeping.” In another verse, “let the earth bring forth _nephesh chayiah_ the living soul after its kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind,” and “_lekol rumesh ol earetz asher bu nephesh chayiah_ to everything creeping upon the earth which has in it living breath,” that is, the breath of lives. And lastly, “whatsoever Adam called _nephesh chayiah_ the living soul that was the name thereof.”

Not even are quadrupeds and men living souls, but they are vivified by the same breath and spirit. _Neshemet chayim_, or the _breath of lives_, and not the _breath_ of _life_ as the text of the common version has it, is said to be in the inferior creatures as well as in man. _Chayim_ in the Hebrew is in the plural number, and therefore the words _neshemet chayim_ should be rendered as above. Thus, God said, “I bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy _all flesh_ wherein is _ruach chayim_ spirit of lives.” And in another place, “they went in to Noah into the ark, two and two of _all flesh_, in which is _ruach chayim_ spirit of lives.” And _all flesh_ died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing, and every man; all in whose nostrils was _neshemet ruach chayim_, BREATH OF SPIRIT OF LIVES. Now, as has been previously affirmed, it was the _neshemet chayim_ with which God, according to the testimony of Moses, inflated the nostrils of Adam. If, therefore, this were a particle of the divine essence, as it is declared, which became the immortal soul in man, then all other animals have likewise immortal souls, for they all received breath of spirit of lives in common with him. Begotten of the same Invisible Power, and formed from the substance of a common earth mother, man and beasts were animated by the same spirit, and constituted to be _living breathing frames_, though of different species, and in God they lived, and moved, and had their continued being.

Returning to the philology of our subject, it is to be remarked that by a metonymy, or a figure of speech where the container is put for the thing contained, and conversely, _nephesh_, _breathing frame_, is put for _neshemet ruach chayim_, which, when in motion, causeth the frame to respire. Hence _nephesh_ signifies not only _breath_ and _soul_, but also _life_, or those mutually affective, positive and negative principles in all living creatures, whose closed circuits cause motion of and in their frames. By Moses these principles, or qualities of the same thing, are apparently styled the _Ruach Elohim_, or by Timothy the Spirit of Him “who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see,” and which, when the word was spoken, first moved upon the face of the waters, and afterwards disengaged the light, evolved the expanse, gathered the waters together, brought forth the green vegetation, manifested the celestial universe, vitalized the breathing frames of the dry land, the firmament and the seas, and formed man in His own image and likeness. This _ruach_, or spirit, was the instrumental principle commissioned by the glorious Increate for the elaboration of the natural world, the erection of this earthly house, and its equipment with living souls of every species; and it is this same instrumentally formative power that, together with the _neshemeh_, or breath, that keeps them from perishing, or returning to the dust. “If God set his heart against man, He will withdraw to himself _ruachu veneshemetu_, that is, _His spirit and His breath_; all flesh shall “perish together, and man shall turn again to dust.” “By the _neshemet el_,” or breath of God, “frost is given.” Speaking of reptiles and beasts, David saith, “thou withdrawest _ruachem_--_their spirit_--they die; and to their dust they return. Thou sendest forth _ruheck_--thy spirit--they are created.”

Illustrating the Scriptural Idea of Living Souls].

From this cumulative evidence it is manifest that the _ruach_ is all-pervading. It is in heaven, in sheol, or in the dust of the deepest hollow; in the uttermost depths of the sea; in the darkness as well as in the light; in all things animate and inanimate. In the broadest, or I may say, in an illimitable sense, it is an _universal_ principle. It is the substratum of all motion, whether manifested in the revolutions of the planets, in the ebb and flow of the sea, in winds and storms and tempests, or in the organisms of plants and animals. The atmospheric expanse is charged with it; but it is not the air. Animals and plants breathe it, but it is not their breath; yet without it, though filled with air, they would die. _Neshemet el_, or atmospheric air, is the breath of God, as Job puts it, or the mighty expanse, as affirmed by Moses. What the _ruach_, or spirit, is, none with certainty can say. Extending from the centre of the earth, and thence in all directions through the immensity of space, is the _Ruach Elohim_, whose existence is demonstrable from the phenomena of the natural order of things. It penetrates where _neshemet el_ cannot penetrate, but when speaking of the motivity and sustentation of organized dust, or souls, they co-exist with them, the _Ruach Elohim_ becoming the _ruach chayim_, or spirit of lives; the _neshemet el_, the _neshemet chayim_, or breath of lives, and both together in the elaboration and support of life, the _neshemet ruach chayim_, or breath of the spirit of lives. Living creatures, or souls, are not animated, as is erroneously supposed, by a vital principle which is capable of disembodied existence. On the contrary, souls are made living by the coetaneous operation of the _ruach chayim_ and the _neshemet chayim_ upon their organized tissues according to certain fixed laws, called natural laws. When the as yet occult laws of the all-pervading _ruach_, or spirit, shall be made known, men will be astonished at their ignorance respecting living souls, as we are at the notion of the ancients that their immortal gods resided in the stocks and the stones they so ignorantly worshipped.

Though lent to the creatures of the natural world for the allotted period of their living existence, yet the _ruach chayim_ and _neshemet chayim_ are still God’s breath and God’s spirit, and to distinguish them from the expanse of air and spirit in their totality, they are sometimes specifically styled “the spirit of man” and “the spirit of the beast,” or collectively “the spirits of all flesh,” and “their breath.” Thus it is written in Ecclesiastes, “they have all _one ruach_, or spirit, so that man hath no preëminence over a beast; for all is vanity or vapor.” “All go to one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” And in the sense of supplying to every living creature, or soul, spirit and breath, Jehovah is styled by Moses in the book of Numbers,--“God of the _spirits_ of _all flesh_.”

Enough has been advanced to show the Scriptural import of the text already quoted, that “the Lord God formed man, the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives; and man became a living soul.” The simple, obvious and undogmatic meaning of this is, that the dust being animalized, and then organized, was next set in motion by the inrush of the air through his nostrils into his lungs according to natural laws. This phenomenon was the _neshemet el_, or “breath of God,” breathing into him; and as it was the pabulum of life to all creatures constituted of dust, it was very expressively styled the “breath of _lives_,” and not the “breath of _life_.” God breathes into every man at his birth the breath of lives to this day, and there can be no reason, Scriptural or otherwise, why we should deny that He breathed it into Adam as He hath done into the nostrils of his posterity by the operation of natural laws. Man, as soon as he began to respire, like the embryo passing from fœtal to infant life, “became a _living soul_,” that is, _nephesh chayiah_, a living, breathing frame, or _body of life_. All kinds of flesh, whether of man, beast, fowl and creeping thing, are made alive by the same breath and spirit. They all become, in consequence, living souls, so that, having a _oneness of spirit_, a man hath no superiority over a beast.

Having now proved, as we think, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that men and beasts “have all one _ruach_, or spirit,” and hence are all living souls, we now approach a form of life, termed vegetable life, about which the Scriptures have little to say. _Neshemet el_, or atmospheric air, is just as essential to plants as to animals. Deprived of it they wither and die. No less necessary is the all-pervading _ruach_, or spirit. It is in the air, though not of the air. Plants, equally with animals, breathe it, but it is not their breath. Without it, even though filled with air, they would perish. Perhaps it is the base of each of the elementary constituents of the air. Uncombined, may it not be that wonderful fluid whose explosions are heard in the thunder, whose fiery bolts overthrow the loftiest towers and rive the sturdy monarchs of the woods, and whose influence, though in less intensity, gives polarity to light, the needle, and the brain?

Living plants are a part and parcel of the life of our globe. They preceded in the grand scheme of creation animal existences. Low down in the scale of life are forms about which it cannot be predicated these are plants and these are animals. Scientists are unable to say where plant-life ends and animal-life begins. No hard-and-fast line can be drawn between the two vast kingdoms of life, and it is often wholly impossible to decide whether we are dealing with an animal or a plant. There can be no question that the earliest life was vegetable by nature, and that its habitat was the primeval ocean. This is no less the teaching of science than that of the Scriptures. From some such life, originating _de novo_ as the Spirit of God passed over the waters, the two great branches of animate nature may have taken their rise. What the form of this life may have been, whether cellular or a mere mass of formless protoplasm, the mind of man cannot asseverate. It is a mystery, and will doubtless ever remain as such to finite intelligence. That this life, no matter how apparently insignificant it must have been, breathed in its own simple fashion, that is, by the coetaneous operation of the _ruach chayim_ and the _neshemet chayim_ upon its simple substance in accordance with natural law, there can be no dispute. Breathing is not always conditioned by the existence of nostrils. Plants respire, or, in other words, take in carbonic acid from the air through their stomata, or mouths, which they separate into its components of carbon and oxygen, appropriating the former, which they build into solid matter, but usually throwing off the latter into the great receptacle of atmosphere from which it was extracted. Even a moner, which has no distinction of parts, may be said to breathe, but it breathes by means of its whole external surface, for _neshemeh_ and _ruach_ are as necessary to it as to man himself. It will thus be obvious that plants are living, breathing frames, or bodies of life, and hence are as much entitled to be considered as living souls as animals are. Let but God withdraw his _ruach_, or spirit, from them, and they die and to their dust return. Surely no more could be predicated of animals.

CONSCIOUSNESS IN PLANTS.

Plants, it has been vaguely asserted, differ from animals by not having the power of movement. Rather should it be stated that plants acquire and display this power when it is to their advantage. This will be found to be of comparatively rare occurrence, as they are affixed to the ground, and food is brought to them by the air and rain. Evidence of the very high position a plant may attain in the scale of organization may be seen when we look at one of the more perfect tendril-bearers. As a polypus adjusts its tentacula for action, so a plant places its tendrils. If the tendril be displaced, it sets to work to right itself. Acted on by the light, it bends towards or from it, or disregards it altogether, whichever course may be the most advantageous. For several days the tendrils or internodes of the plant, or both, spontaneously or otherwise revolve with a steady motion. But should they strike some object, they curl quickly around it, grasp it with wonderful firmness, and in the course of a few hours contract into spirals, dragging up the stems, and forming most excellent springs. All external movements now cease, and by growth the tissues soon become surprisingly strong and durable.

Such a movement, as has just been considered, is a widely prevalent one in plants, and is essentially of the same nature as that of the stem of a climbing plant, which successively bends to all points of the compass, so that the tip is made to revolve. This movement has been called _revolving nutation_ by some writers, and _circumnutation_ by others. In the case of the circumnutating movement of the tip of the radicle of some plants, there can be no doubt that it is it that affords the radicle some slight assistance in penetrating the ground. But whether or not a radicle, when surrounded by softened earth, is aided in making a passage for itself by circumnutating, one thing is certain, that is, that this movement, by guiding the radicle along a line of least resistance, can hardly fail to be of high importance. Should, however, a radicle in its downward growth break obliquely into any crevice, or an opening left by a decayed root, or one made by the larva of an insect, and more especially by worms, the circumnutating movement of the tip will materially aid it in following such open passages. Not only our own observation, but also those of such eminent authorities as Darwin and Hensen, conclusively show that roots commonly run down the old burrows of worms.

But radicles of seedlings, as well as those of more vigorous plants, would pass over stones, roots and other obstacles, which they must necessarily encounter in the soil. This they are abundantly able to do, for they are exceedingly sensitive just above their apices, and bend like a tendril _towards_ the touching object. When, however, one side of the apex is pressed by any object, the growing part bends _away_ from that object, and this seems a beautiful adaptation for avoiding obstacles in the soil, and for following the lines of least resistance.

Earth Cut Away to Show Directions Taken by Tip of Radicle in Avoiding a Stone.]

So feeble is the circumnutating movement of the terminal growing part, both of the primary and secondary radicles, that it can assist them but little in penetrating the ground, excepting when the superficial layer is very soft and moist. But it must aid them materially when they chance to break obliquely into cracks, or into burrows that have been made by earth-worms or larvæ. Moreover, combined as it is with the sensitiveness of the tip of the radicle to contact, it can hardly fail to be of the highest importance, for as the tip is always endeavoring to bend to all sides, it will press on all sides, and will thus be able to discriminate between the harder and softer adjoining surfaces. Consequently, it will tend to bend from the harder soil, and will thus take the directions of the least resistance. So it will act if it meet with a stone or the root of another plant in the soil, as must incessantly occur. If the tip were not sensitive, and did not excite the upper part of the radicle to bend away, whenever obstacles were encountered at right angles to its growing direction, it would undoubtedly be liable to be doubled up into a contorted mass. But with radicles growing down inclined plates of glass, as shown by experiment, it has been observed that as soon as the tip merely touched a slip of wood cemented across the plate, the entire terminal growing point curved away, so that the tip soon stood at right angles to its former direction; and thus, as far as the pressure of the surrounding soil would permit, would it be with an obstacle encountered in the ground. Thick and strong radicles, like those of the horse-chestnut, are endowed with less sensitiveness than more delicate ones, and would therefore be the better able by the force of their growth to overcome any slight impediment to their progress. Further, as radicles perceive an excess of moisture in the air on one side and bend towards this side, it is reasonable to infer that they will act in a similar manner with respect to moisture in the earth, for the sensitiveness of moisture resides in the tip, which determines the bending of the upper part. May not this capacity partly account for the extent to which drain-pipes often become choked with roots? The direction which the apex takes at each successive period of the growth of a root, ultimately determines its whole course. It is therefore very important that the apex should follow from the first the most advantageous direction. We can thus understand why sensitiveness to geotropism, contact and moisture should all reside in the tip, and why it should determine the upper growing part to bend either from or to the exciting cause. Darwin has compared a radicle with a burrowing animal, such as a mole, which wishes to penetrate vertically into the ground. By a process of circumnutation, or the movement of his head from side to side, he is enabled to feel any stone or other obstacle, as well as any difference in hardness of soil that may exist, and will therefore turn from that side; but if damper on one side than on the other, will turn thither as a more suitable hunting-ground. Nevertheless, after each interruption, he, guided by the sense of gravity, will be able to recover his downward direction and to reach to a greater depth.

Destruction of the tip of a radicle does not prevent the adjoining part from bending, if this part has already received some influence from the tip. As with a horizontally extended radicle, whose tip has been cut off or destroyed, the part which should bend most remains motionless for many days or hours, even though exposed at right angles to the full influence of gravity, we cannot do otherwise than conclude that the tip alone is sensitive to this power, and transmits some stimulus to the neighboring parts, thereby causing them to bend. Direct evidence of such transmission has been obtained. When a radicle was left extended horizontally for an hour or an hour and a half, by which time the supposed influence will have travelled some distance from the tip, and the tip was then cut off, the radicle subsequently became bent, although it was placed in a perpendicular position. Terminal portions of several radicles thus treated continued for some time to grow in the direction of their newly-acquired curvature, for being destitute of tips they were no longer acted upon by the power of gravity. New vegetative points, however, appeared, and being acted on by this influence coursed themselves perpendicularly downward as was their custom.

Investigation having shown that it is the tip of the radicle that is sensitive to geotropism in the members of such distinct families as the Leguminosæ, Malvaceæ, Cucurbitaceæ and Gramineæ, which may be represented by the Clover, Mallow, Gourd and Rye, we may justly infer that this character is common to the roots of most seedling-plants. Whilst a root is penetrating the ground, the tip must take the incipient step, as it has to determine the direction of the entire root. When, however, it is deflected by any subterranean obstacle, it is essential that a considerable length of the root should be able to bend, particularly as the tip itself grows slowly and bends but little, so that the proper downward course should be recovered. Immaterial as it would seem whether the entire growing part should be so sensitive to geotropism as to effect this movement, or that it should be brought about by an influence transmitted exclusively from the tip, we should, however, remember that it is the tip that is sensitive to the contact of hard objects, causing the radicle to bend away from them, thus directing it along certain lines in the soil where the least opposition interposes. It is again the tip that is alone sensitive, at least in some instances, to moisture, causing the radicle to bend towards its source. These last two kinds of sensitiveness conquer for a time the sensitiveness to geotropism, which, however, ultimately prevails. But the three kinds most often come into antagonism, first one prevailing, and then the other. It would, therefore, be an advantage, perhaps a necessity, for the interweighing and reconciling of these different kinds of sensitiveness, that they should all be localized in the same group of cells which have to transmit the command to the adjoining parts of the radicle, necessitating it to bend to or from the source of the irritation.

Though generally believed by authors that the modification of the upper or lower surfaces of a radicle, whereby curvature is induced in the proper direction, is the direct result of gravitation, yet there can be no question from all that has been said that it is the tip alone that is acted on and that transmits some influence to the adjoining parts, causing them to curve in a downward manner. Gravity, it would seem, does not act in a more direct way on a radicle than it does on any lowly-organized animal, which moves away when it feels some weight or pressure.

When we consider what we have written, it is impossible not to be impressed with the resemblance between the movements of plants and many of the actions performed by the lower animals. With plants an astonishingly small stimulus suffices. One plant may be highly sensitive to the slightest continued pressure, while a closely-allied form just as highly sensitive to a slight momentary touch. The habit of moving at certain periods is inherited both by plants and animals; and other points of similitude have been specified. But the most striking resemblance is the localization of their sensitiveness, and the transmission of a stimulus from the exciting point to another, which consequently moves. Yet plants do not, of course, possess nerves or a central nervous system. May we not therefore infer, and wisely so, too, that with animals such structures but serve for the more perfect transmission of impressions, and for the more complete intercommunication of their several parts?

No structure in plants seems more wonderful, as far as its functions are concerned, than the tip of the radicle. Lightly pressed or burnt or cut, it transmits an influence to the upper adjoining part, causing it to bend away from the affected side. But more surprising, however, is the fact that the tip can distinguish between a slightly harder and softer object, by which it is simultaneously pressed on opposite sides. Let the radicle be pressed by a similar object a little above the tip, and it will be noticed that the pressed part does not transmit any influence to the more distant parts, but bends abruptly towards the object. Perceiving the air to be moister on one side than the other, it likewise sends out an influence to the upper adjoining part, which deflects towards the source of the moisture. When excited by light, the neighboring part bends from the light; but when excited by gravitation, the same part bends towards the centre of gravity. In almost every instance the ultimate purpose or advantage of the several movements can be clearly perceived. Two, or perhaps more, of the exciting causes often act simultaneously on the tip, and one conquers the other, doubtless in accordance with its importance for the life of the plant. The course pursued by the radicle in penetrating the ground being determined by the tip, has acquired for it the diverse kinds of sensitiveness which it possesses; and it is hardly an exaggeration to assert that the tip of the radicle thus endowed, and having the power to direct the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals, which organ, seated within the anterior end of the body, receives impressions from the sense-organs, and directs their several movements.

In animals possessed of a nervous system, contractions only follow stimuli, which are carried to the contractile elements by nervous threads, the internal energy representing the external stimulus being called nervous energy or neurism. But where a nervous system does not exist, as is the case in some low animals and in all plants, external stimuli must be justly supposed to be converted into the same form of energy, which in such organisms has a general circulation throughout the contractile protoplasm. The attainment of some position, favorable for the procurement of relief from some unpleasant sensation, or the acquisition of some agreeable one, or for both, is the important thing directly subserved by such movements in the generality of animals. While we have the best of reasons for believing this to be true in the vast majority of animals, because fundamentally their structure is similar to our own, yet the inference that the same is true of the lowest forms of life is justifiable until it is proved to be mistaken.

Whatever be the nature of any movement, whether the projecting of portions of its own body-substance as pseudopodia in the primitive animal, the movement of flagella or cilia in more specialized forms, or the turning of the radicle of a plant-seedling in overcoming some obstacle, there is no resisting the conclusion that the functions of these organs, when once called into existence, are due to stimuli not unlike those which affect the motions of the limbs of the higher animals, and that the preliminary to all such movements, which are not automatic, is an effort. And as no adaptive movement is automatic the first time it is performed, effort, therefore, may be regarded as the immediate source of all movement. Now, effort is a conscious state, and implies a sense of resistance to be overcome. But when an act is performed without effort, resistance has been overcome, and the mechanism requisite for its performance has been completed. Automatism has now been reached. New movements, in their incipiency, necessarily meet with resistance. How this resistance is overcome, there seems to be some diversity of opinion among physiologists and metaphysicians, but it is generally believed that some such mental state as a sensation or a desire, which may or may not stimulate a natural process as an intervening element in the circuit, is concerned in its subduement. That sense-perceptions are stimuli to the immediate appearance of structural changes or movements is shown by the production of color-changes in animals through changes in the condition of the organs of sight and in the bending of the radicle of a seedling-plant a short distance above its tip in obedience to a communication from the tip of a sensation of hardness, caused by contact with a stone experienced in its downward progress in the ground.

Lower Cells Show Where Consciousness is Supposed to Reside.]

New conditions bring forth new acts in animals. No one can deny this statement, as instances of its truth are too frequent to believe otherwise. That such may be predicated of plants, which have not the ability, as a rule, to meet with new conditions by reason of their being affixed to the soil, very few persons are willing to admit; but there is no getting away from the fact. The tip of the radicle of a plant not only has the power, acting as a brain, as it would seem, of guiding the root out of the reach of an obstacle that would be injurious, or in the direction of water when it would be an advantage, but a tendril has also the ability, in obedience to some inherent force, of making its way to a support that has been purposely placed in the near distance for its especial benefit. No external agencies, which the materialistic naturalist has devised for accounting for the movements of plants and low types of animal existences that are devoid of a visible nervous system, can possibly explain these movements, which are only explicable on the theory that nervous energy may be elaborated and be distributed without such a system by and through the general mass of the plant or animal, or by and through such parts as may be necessary to its good.

No one who has experimented with the Droseras or Sundews, can have failed to observe the extreme sensitiveness which resides in their leaves. That these plants manifest a comparatively high order of consciousness, there can be no question. Try them with insects, or rare bits of meat, as articles of diet, and in a few hours, if vigorous leaves have been experimented with, the leaves will have folded around the food and commenced their curious process of assimilation. Mineral substances, such as bits of chalk, magnesia and small pebbles, have no such effect. They seem to ignore these things, just as an intelligent animal would if they were placed by its side. Some experiments made by Mrs. Treat, several summers ago, go far to confirm the statement that plants are endowed with some sort of consciousness. _Drosera filiformis_ was the species used in her experiments. Some living flies were pinned one-half an inch from the leaves, but near their apical extremities. In forty minutes the leaves had perceptibly bent toward the flies, and in little more than an hour had reached the prey, the legs of the latter being entangled and held fast by the tentacles of the leaves. Next, the flies were removed three-quarters of an inch further from the leaves, but the latter, even though bent away from the direction of the light, failed to reach them at this distance. What was it that induced the leaves to stretch in the direction of the flies? Had the sun been shining from that side, it might be said that the movement of the leaves was influenced by its light and heat, for plants as a general rule turn toward that part of the heavens where these energies are the most effective. It cannot be that they were produced by some emanation of moisture from the bodies of the flies, or by any influence that might be exercised by the vibratory movements of their wings. No vain imaginings of such character will suffice for their explanation. The energy necessary to explain this phenomenon must come from within the leaves themselves. There was felt within them a desire for food, and it was this desire that led the leaves to bend away from the light and in the direction of the objects whose presence created in them that sensation. But how they were able, in the absence of any visible sense-organs, to determine the presence of these objects, is difficult to surmise. That they are sensitive to contact is generally conceded. And in them, no doubt, the sense of touch is keenly developed. Granting this to be the truth, then they see, as a blind man sees, by the sense of feeling. Currents of air, established by the vibration of the insect’s wings, impinging upon the epidermis of the leaves, affect the cells beneath, and a nervous influence is started, guided by some central agency, of which we know nothing, causing the leaves to bend in the proper direction. But why the leaves do not thus bend when impinged upon by currents other than those produced by insects, I am unable to say. Even as a blind man, though deaf, is able through the sense of touch to discriminate moving objects by the currents of air they excite, so it may be presumed that the leaves of Drosera are endowed with the same wonderful and intelligent capacity. Such a feeling once experienced would be apt to be known again, for it would become fixed in consciousness by a process of memory. That Drosera, whose habits are more animal-like than plant-like, must occupy a high position in the scale of vegetable life, there can be no reason to doubt from what has been said, and this assumption receives a most remarkable confirmation from the fact that there are evidences, not apparent however, of a sort of nervous system in its make-up, as shown by the discovery of Darwin that by pricking a certain point in a leaf one-half of its substance becomes paralyzed.

Wonderful as these facts are, yet they are not more so than some recent discoveries made by Stahl while studying the simple movements and physical conditions of certain low plants called Myxomycetes. In their young stages these plants wander from the parts of the deposit on which they are creeping, and which are gradually drying up, toward those which are more moist. It is possible, by bringing moist bodies in proximity to any ramifications, to produce pseudopodia, which lift themselves from the deposit, and soon come into contact with the moist object, so as to enable the whole mass of the plasmodium, that is, the large, motile, membranous protoplasmic body formed by the coalescence of the swarm-spores of the Myxomycetes, to migrate thereon. But on the entrance of the plasmodia into the fructifying condition, the Myxomycete quits the moist deposit, technically called the substratum, and creeps upwards on to the surface of dry objects. Unequal distribution of warmth in the substratum and unequal supplies of oxygen and chemical substances soluble in water also cause locomotion in these strange organisms. Let the plasmodia come into contact on one side with solutions of saltpetre, carbonate of potash or common salt, and they at once withdraw from the dangerous spot; but an infusion of tan, or a dilute solution of sugar, causes a flow of the protoplasm and an ultimate translocation of the entire plasmodial mass towards the source of nourishment. Some solutions have an attractive or repulsive effect, but this is in accordance with the degree of their concentration. Unlike what is so natural to plants in general, the Myxomycetes seem to have an aversion to light, as shown by their disposition to withdraw from its presence.

How such tender structures as the Myxomycetes, which are destitute of every kind of external protection, are enabled to carry on their existence, the knowledge of the remarkably delicate reaction of their plasmodia under external influences prepares us to understand. Plasmodia, which are not yet ripe for reproduction, are kept in the moist substratum by their peculiar affection for moisture and utter dislike of the light. But within the darkness and moisture of the substratum the plasmodia do not necessarily remain in one place, for the differences in the chemical composition of the substratum cause continual migrations. Nothing more remarkable can be said of the plasmodia than that they have a wonderful faculty of avoiding harmful substances, and, traversing the substratum in all directions, of taking up the materials they require for food and growth. When, however, their internal changes have advanced so far that the plasmodia are approaching the fructifying condition, they are brought by their dislike for moisture, which now sets in, from the moist ground of forest or wood which they affect to the surface, where they creep up various upright objects, frequently not doing more than forming rigid reproductive capsules at some height from the ground. If, however, the substratum becomes gradually colder, as is the case in autumn, a change which sets in at the surface moving downwards, then the plasmodia migrate into deeper regions still having a higher temperature; but when the cooling proceeds very gradually, which especially happens in large tan-heaps, the plasmodia may in their migration attain considerable depths, where they then change into sclerotia, which are hard tuberous substances, resembling the tubers and bulbs of flowering plants. If, however, the temperature begins to ascend, the sclerotia again germinate, and movement takes place from the deeper and cooler parts to the upper already named.

Thus we see, in the locomotion of the Myxomycetes, extremely interesting cases of movements due to stimulation. Light, heat, moisture and gravitation are, in general, stimulus-movements, and ultimately all growth depends on stimulus-movement, the most primitive kind of protoplasmic movement. No causes other than those which actuate higher organisms can be discerned to account for this lowest type of organic movement. What form of inorganic energy can be cited of sufficient potency to cause the organism to change, and without regard to gravitation or any known form of attraction or repulsion, its position in obedience to stimuli acting for its self-preservation? There is none. In the Fuligo, or Tan Flower, a most remarkable example of designed movement has been observed. This form will, according to H. J. Carter, in its early amœbula stage, when isolated from the sawdust and chips of wood among which it has been living, adapt itself to the water of a watch-glass, or any other shallow vessel, in which it may happen to be placed. But, if the watch-glass be placed upon the sawdust, then it will make its way over the side of the glass to get to the sawdust. Here is probably shown a sense-perception of the presence and position of the tan-bark, as well as a feeling of desire to go to it. May not this desire have been due to a sense of discomfort induced by the surrounding water, or to the calling up in memory of some superior comfort associated with the tan-bark?

Man in his self-complacency thinks that he knows the plants about him. It is true that he has noted their form, their anatomy, their color and their resemblances and differences, but how few have studied them in meadow and woods by the light of a lantern at night or by the silver rays of the moon. One feels on such an occasion as though he had stepped from his threshold upon a foreign soil. Folded leaves and strange sleeping forms will be found to confront you in every direction. Of the nature of the nocturnal movements of plants, as well as their varied and curious attitudes, both in leaves and flowers, much speculation has been rife among botanists. In many flowers the night attitudes have been conclusively shown to have relation solely to their fertilization by insects; but the drooping night attitudes of the leaves were supposed to indicate an aversion to moisture, many plants seemingly verifying the conjecture by the assumption of the same position during rain as in the dew. But when the same pranks were played on a cloudy day or a dewless night, the explanation had to be abandoned. With the clovers, the nocturnal positions of the heads seem to be assumed only in the darkness, and this invariably, dew or no dew, while the leaves appear to revel in the rain, remaining freely open, their chief concern being the protection of the young blossom-clusters.