Download (PDF, 23.58MB) - Plurality Press

PHYSIOLOGY OP PLANTS. 303
the vegetable kingdom, stimuli, call forth, the effect, the
causal connection is so simple, that there is not even the
slightest semblance of freedom. But already in animal
life, where that which till then had manifested itself as
cause or as stimulus, now appears as a motive and a new
world, that of representation, consequently presents itself,
and cause and effect lie in different spheres the causal
connection between both, and with it the necessity, are less
evident than they were in plants and in inorganic Nature.
Nevertheless they are still unmistakable in animals, whose
merely intuitive representation stands midway between
organic functions induced by stimuli and the deliberate acts
of Man. The animal s actions infallibly follow as soon
as the perceptible motive is present, unless counter
acted by some equally perceptible counter-motive or by
training; yet here representation is already distinct from
the act of volition and comes separately into consciousness.
But in Man whose representation has enhanced itself even
to abstract conception and who now derives motives and
counter-motives for his actions from a whole invisible
thought-world which he carries about with him in his
brain and which makes him independent of presence and of
perceptible surroundings this connection no longer exists
at all for observation from outside, and even for inward
observation it is
mature reflection.
only knowable through abstract and
For these abstract motives, when ob
served from outside, give an impress of deliberation to all
his movements, by which they acquire a semblance of inde
pendence that manifestly distinguishes them from those of
animals, yet which after all only bears evidence to the fact,
that Man is actuated by a class of representations in which
animals do not share. Then again, in self-consciousness,
the act of volition is known to us in the most immediate
way, but the motive in most cases very indirectly, being
often even intentionally veiled, out of consideration for