585- What do you think of the division of nature into three kingdoms or into two classes: organic beings and inorganic beings? Some regard the human species as a fourth kingdom. Which of these divisions is preferable?
“They are all good. It depends on one’s point of view: from a material point of view, there are only inorganic and organic beings. From the moral point of view, however, there are obviously four degrees.”
These four degrees in fact have well-marked characteristics, although their edges seem to blend into each other. Inert matter, which comprises the mineral kingdom, possesses no more than a mechanical energy; plants, although composed of inert matter, are endowed with vitality; animals, composed of inert matter and endowed with vitality, also have a kind of instinctive, limited intelligence, with an awareness of their existence and individuality; lastly, human beings possess everything that exists in plants and animals, and they dominate all the other classes through a special and unlimited intelligence that provides them with the awareness of their future, the perception of extra-material things and the knowledge of God.
586- Do plants have any awareness of their existence?
“No, they do not think; they have only organic life.”
587- Do plants feel sensations? Do they suffer when mutilated?
“Plants receive the physical impressions that act upon matter, but they do not have perceptions; consequently, they do not feel the sensation of pain.”
588- Is the force that attracts plants towards each other independent of their will?
“Yes, because they do not think. It is a mechanical force of matter acting upon matter; they cannot oppose it.”
589- Some plants – the mimosa and the dionea54, for example – show movements that indicate great sensitivity, and in some cases, a kind of will, like the latter, whose lobes seize the fly that lands on it in order to suck its juices, seeming to have set a trap to kill it. Are these plants endowed with the faculty of thought? Do they have a will and do they form an intermediary class between the plant and animal nature? Do they comprise a transition from the one to the other?
“Everything in nature is in transition by the same fact that one thing does not resemble another, and that everything, nevertheless, is linked together. Plants do not think, and consequently have no will. The oyster, which opens itself, and all other zoophytes do not possess thought. They have no more than a blind and natural instinct.”
54Venus Flytrap – Tr.
The human organism furnishes us with examples of analogous movements that do not involve any participation of the will, such as the digestive and circulatory functions. The pylorus closes itself on contact with certain substances to refuse them passage. The same applies to the mimosa, whose movements do not imply any perception at all, much less a will.
590- In plants, as in animals, isn’t there an instinct for self preservation that leads them to seek what may be useful to them and to avoid what may harm them?
“There is, if you wish, a kind of instinct. It depends on the extent you attribute to the word, but it is purely mechanical. When you see two bodies combine during a chemical reaction, it is because they harmonize with each other, that is, there is an affinity between them, but you do not call it instinct.”
591- On more highly evolved worlds, are the plants, like the other beings, more perfect in nature?
“Everything is more perfect, but the plants are always plants, as the animals are always animals, and as the human beings are always human beings.”
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