--in
plants. Some intermediate forms still record to us the long struggle
during which the schism was not yet complete.

If I may be pardoned for pursuing this digression further, I would say
that it is the plants and not we who are the heretics. There can be no
question about this; we are perfectly justified, therefore, in devouring
them. Ours is the original and orthodox belief, for protoplasm is much
more animal than vegetable; it is much more true to say that plants have
descended from animals than animals from plants. Nevertheless, like many
other heretics, plants have thriven very fairly well. There are a great
many of them, and as regards beauty, if not wit--of a limited kind
indeed, but still wit--it is hard to say that the animal kingdom has the
advantage. The views of plants are sadly narrow; all dissenters are
narrow-minded; but within their own bounds they know the details of their
business sufficiently well--as well as though they kept the most nicely-
balanced system of accounts to show them their position. They are eaten,
it is true; to eat them is our intolerant and bigoted way of trying to
convert them: eating is only a violent mode of proselytising or
converting; and we do convert them--to good animal substance, of our own
way of thinking. If we have had no trouble with them, we say they have
"agreed" with us; if we have been unable to make them see things from our
points of view, we say they "disagree" with us, and avoid being on more
than distant terms with them for the future. If we have helped ourselves
to too much, we say we have got more than we can "manage." But then,
animals are eaten too. They convert one another, almost as much as they
convert plants. And an animal is no sooner dead than a plant will
convert it back again. It is obvious, however, that no schism could have
been so long successful, without having a good deal to say for itself.

Neither party has been quite consistent. Who ever is or can be? Every
extreme--every opinion carried to its logical end--will prove to be an
absurdity. Plants throw out roots and boughs and leaves: this is a kind
of locomotion; and as Dr. Erasmus Darwin long since pointed out, they do
sometimes approach nearly to what may be called travelling; a man of
consistent character will never look at a bough, a root, or a tendril
without regarding it as a melancholy and unprincipled compromise. On the
other hand, many animals are sessile, and som