The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-07-21

we cannot feel But. wiser than LombrOsO,
l renounce the hope Of knowing their code
OF morality.
What. You say that a plant Is guilty be-
cause II devours an insect. and you eat
without remOrse salad and vegetables?
Why do you expect an insect TO be more
sacred for plant than an eggplant Is sa-
cred for yOu2 II Is possible IL is conceiva-
Bile, 10 commit faults and crimes But
what are these faults? what are these
crimes? That is the secret Of God Per
haps the rose bushes are guilty when they
refuse to come into bloom; perhaps there
are in the chalices of lilies stamens sOiled
by Infamous vices They would be crimes
OF plants. But that the drOsera should be
ranked among scoundrelly herbs because
1t STILES insects is something which we
shall never concede to LombrosO.
This criminalist eats without remOrse
not only salad and peas, but beef and NUT
ton. and condemns insectivorous plants.
without thinking that If II be crime for
a plant to feed upon animals, IL must be a
crime also for a man TO feed on herbs.
LOmbroso might have been right to in
criminate a plant guilty OF having de-
voured another plant. I cOncede that this
might be a crime. But to reproach a tree
for having dined off an insect. when all
of us eat our brothers, the sheep. every
day Is excessive
l fear that my thought may not have
been expressed with sufficient clearness.
discern that the obscurity in which l have
involuntarily enveloped myself comes of
my neglect to define the word will,
which is really the key to the weak but
sincere ideas that ! have expressed
1 believe that will is the cause and the
origin of all activity in the vegetable
world. as IN the animal world and in the
human world. 1 call will the obscure and
sovereign force which animates the uni-
verse and impels beings invincibly to
achieve the eternal cycle Of metamorpho-
ses.
In this sense IL may not be denied that
a blade of grass is gifted with will. What
could force IL TO grow If 1t did not wish to
What could constrain a chestnut to come
into bloom If 1t had not the force to lOve2
And do wrong to insist on the communi-
ty of will which inspires equally plants
and animals.
For the philosopher, there are neither
vegetables nor animals. These distinctions
came of the need which classifiers felt to
put order into nature. In reality, there are
neither animals nor vegetables in nature.
The germs of willows are little aquatic
insects which, by their faculty TO move and
to feed themselves, are much more ike
crocodiles than like mimosas. The impos-
sibility to trace a line of demarkation be-
tween the vegetable and the animal Is
a
We know how to guard ourselves
against the truths of common sense. v {
must learn how to guard ourselves against
the truths of laboratories. l mean that If
vulgar wisdom is purely empirical the
truth that alembics reveal is a truth that
ends with the furnace where 1t was
found Chemists see nature only in ITS
relations with men. They are, in their
way symbolsts, and what they know OF
protoxide of azote is about what the Hell
lenes knew of the superior air when they
said II was Athene issued from the head
of Zeus Science does not liberate us
from mythology. That is perhaps the
reason why like it so dearly, as the most
beautiful subject of uncertainty, which
one may find in this sublunar world. |
have read sufficient number of botanical
treatises; 1 have found in none Of these
good little books the faintest idea of what
a plant is. Messieurs the botanists would
laugh at me II said 10 them, IAN oak is
acolony." Where are the families and tie
individuals in this green colony?
have an idea that every branch is a
family, every twig an individual, with
its own system of circulators. nervous
substance. and tudiment of brains Yes.
its rudiment of brains, intelligence, and
will. Yes, the plant wants to live. Ceas-
ing to will-for the plant as for us-is to
die. The greatest philosopher of this CEN
tury-Goethe-has said; zone dies only
when one has not the strength to wish
70 live