Personality of plants

THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS
veritable agony. Plants about to die undergo
a violent spasm and then by making no response
at all to outside influences, show that they have
actually given up the ghost.
Sir Jaghadish is satisfied that a plant pulled
up by the roots experiences a shock comparable
to that of a man being beaten into insensibility.
Many trees and plants, as every gardener
knows, fail to survive transplanting and die
from pure shock, even if their tissue has been
in no way injured. Sir Jaghadish has performed
the interesting experiment of administering a
powerful chemical to act as an anesthetic to
trees about to be transplanted. Such specimens
have stood the re-location well but in some
cases have shown an apparent loss of memory
and a general state of upset habit, exactly as
would a man or animal coming out of a stupor.
All this strongly suggests a soul or driving
spiritual force in every living creature. Regard-
ing its exact nature there are many opinions.
Maeterlinck believes that there is a general
scattered intelligence, a sort of universal fluid,
which penetrates all organisms in an amount
proportionate to their conductivity. Man offers
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