Excerpt from The Sagacity Morality of Plants The life of a plant, like that of an animal, is a series of constant adjustments between internal strue ture and organisation and external surroundings. The latter are of such an almost infinitely variable and varying character that we cannot wonder the adjustments, or in other words the fiabz'tr, of plants are so infinitely numerous - especially when we remember the long geological periods of time during which the constant adaptations and modifications have been taking place. We sometimes hear people Speak of the instinct of plants: But how can instincts arise unless there be some kind of consciousness? For instinct is now generally regarded as the experience of the moo, as distinguished from that of the individual. The registration of experience may be in itself an in telligent rather than an automatic act. To Speak of the tendencies on the part of plants to assume a certain habit is merely to coin a word to disguise our ignorance of the process. A tendency for a plant to behave in a certain manner is merely a habit based upon the past experience of its ancestors as to what has proved best for them as a Species. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This is a study of the ethical system presented in the Confucian texts, organized by topics, such as What Constitutes The Superior Man, Self-Development, General Human Relations, The Family, The State, Cultivation Of The Fine Arts, and Universal Relations."At the age of seventy, Shuh-liang Heih, the father of ten children of whom but one was a son and he a cripple, sought a wife in the Yen family where there were three daughters. The two elder of them demurred when apprised by their father of the old man's suit; but the youngest, Ching-tsai, only seventeen years of age, offered to abide by her father's judgment. The following year Confucius was born and three years later she was a widow."