The little seedling we know to be growing, but the rate of its growth is
far below anything we can directly perceive. How are we to magnify this
so as to make it instantly measurable? What are the variations in this
infinitesimal growth under external shock? what changes are induced by
the action of drugs or poisons? will the action of poison change with
the dose? Is it possible to counteract the effect of one by another?
Supposing that the plant does not give answers to external shock, what
time elapses between the shock and the reply? Does this latent period
undergo any variation with external conditions? Is it possible to make
the plant itself write down this excessively minute time-interval?
Next, does the effect of the blow given outside reach the interior of
the plant? If so, is there anything analogous to the nerve of the
animal? If so, again, at what rate does the nervous impulse travel the
plant? By what favourable circumstances will this rate of transmission
become enhanced, and by what will be retarded or arrested? Is it
possible to make the plant itself record this rate and its variations?
Is there any resemblance between the nervous impulse in plants and
animals? In the animal there are certain automatically pulsating tissues
like the heart. Are there any such spontaneously beating tissues in a
plant? What is the meaning of spontaneity? And lastly, when by the blow
of death, life itself is finally extinguished, will it be possible to
detect the critical moment? And does the plant then exert itself to make
one overwhelming reply, after which response ceases altogether? Its
autobiography can only be regarded as complete, if, with the help of
efficient instruments, all these questions can be answered by it, so as
to form the different chapters.
"If the plant could have been made thus to keep its own diary, then the
whole of its history might have been recovered!" But words like these
are born of day dreams merely. Vague imaginings of this kind may furnish
much gratification to an idle life. When, awaking from these pleasant
dreams of science, we seek to actualise the conditions imposed by them,
we find ourselves face to face with a dead wall. For the doorway of
nature's court is barred with iron, and through it can penetrate no mere
cry of childish petulance. It is only by the gathered force of many
years of concentration, that the gate can be opened, and the seeker
enter to explore the secrets that have baffled him so long.