 up into
the same kind of organism as theirs. If it found the circumstances only a little
different, it would make shift (successfully or unsuccessfully) to modify its
development accordingly; if the circumstances were widely different, it would
die, probably without an effort at self-adaptation. This, he argued, applied
equally to the germs of plants and of animals.
    He therefore connected all, both animal and vegetable development, with
intelligence, either spent and now unconscious, or still unspent and conscious;
and in support of his view as regards vegetable life, he pointed to the way in
which all plants have adapted themselves to their habitual environment Granting
that vegetable intelligence at first sight appears to differ materially from
animal, yet, he urged, it is like it in the one essential fact that though it
has evidently busied itself about matters that are vital to the well-being of
the organism that possesses it, it has never shown the slightest tendency to
occupy itself with anything else. This, he insisted, is as great a proof of
intelligence as any living being can give.
    »Plants,« said he, »show no sign of interesting themselves in human affairs.
We shall never get a rose to understand that five times seven are thirty-five,
and there is no use in talking to an oak about fluctuations in the price of
stocks. Hence we say that the oak and the rose are unintelligent, and on finding
that they do not understand our business conclude that they do not understand
their own. But what can a creature who talks in this way know about
intelligence? Which shows greater signs of intelligence? He, or the rose and
oak?
    And when we call plants stupid for not understanding our business, how
capable do we show ourselves of understanding theirs? Can we form even the
faintest conception of the way in which a seed from a rose-tree turns earth,
air, warmth and water into a rose full-blown? Where does it get its colour from?
From the earth, air, etc.? Yes - but how? Those petals of such ineffable texture
- that hue that outvies the cheek of a child - that scent, again? Look at earth,
air, and water - these are all the raw material that the rose has got to work
with; does it show any sign of want of intelligence in the alchemy with which it
turns mud into rose-leaves? What chemist can do anything comparable? Why does no
one try? Simply because every one knows that no human intelligence is equal to
the task. We give it up
