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Concerning the mechanism of the movements and the character of the motor impulse little is known. During the act of inflection fluid surely passes from one part to another of the tentacles. In explanation of the fact it is claimed that the motor impulse is allied in nature to the aggregating process, and that this causes the molecules of the cell-walls to approach each other, as do the molecules of the protoplasm within the cells, thereby causing the cells in all to contract. This is probably the hypothesis that best accords with the observed facts, although some strong objections may be urged against this view. The elasticity of their outer cells, which comes into activity as soon as those on the inner side cease contracting with prepotent force, leads largely to the re-expansion of the tentacles, but there is reason to suspect that fluid is continually and slowly attracted into the outer cells during the act of re-expansion, thus augmenting their tension.

With respect to the structure, movements, constitution and habits of Dionæa muscipula and Drosera rotundifolia, as well as kindred species, little has been made out by patient study and investigation in comparison with what remains unexplained and unknown. Many of their movements, especially of Dionæa and Drosera, seem so sensible and intelligent that the reflecting mind of man can hardly hesitate to assign them high positions in organic nature and the possession, even though in a very small degree, of that consciousness with which animal life is endowed. That man is psychically related to all life is the belief of millions in the old world, and the hope of millions in the new. In this thought is the escape from materialism, that threat of the ignorant and unbelieving. Higher conceptions of beauty and greatness are now being entertained by the multitudes, and we begin to feel that the next great step is being taken when we shall become, instead of poor trembling denizens of a perishable world, proud and conscious citizens of an imperishable universe. That we of the upper ranks of God’s creation alone possess an inner life which shall transcend all change is no longer a general belief, but there is a growing hope that all nature shares it, and that love is its expression and its method. All existence is a unit. Life, law and love are divine. Man, looking calmly about him, cannot set himself apart as something essentially different from nature, but must recognize himself as a part, and include love in the universal scheme of development. All other expressions of life must share with him in the divine love and progress. His dogmas, founded on mistaken traditions, have given way to science, and he cannot but believe that love is in and of the soul, and that all life has some sort of development of soul. Because plant-life has no brain, and therefore has no intelligence, no mind, no soul, is preposterous to contemplate. Who can positively affirm that brain alone is the seat of conscious intelligence? None but He alone, the Giver of all life, who sits enthroned and exalted in the everlasting heavens.