Not mainly has the writer, in attributing a phosphorescent quality to the evening primrose, followed the license of fancy, for, if scientists are to be believed, the regular luminous glow of this and other nocturnal flowers has long attracted the attention of the curious, and positive qualities of inherent light have been accorded in many instances. It is true, as one authority asserts, that “the evening primrose is perfectly visible in the darkest night,” from which fact phosphorescent properties have been ascribed to it. Many well-authenticated cases are on record of luminous, electrical, lightning-like phosphorescence playing about flowers, the daughter of Linnæus having been the first one to note such an interesting phenomenon. Similar flashes or corona have been observed in nasturtiums, double marigold, geraniums, red poppy, tuberose, sunflower and evening primrose. According to various authorities, and it would be a rash and presumptuous commentator who would dare to challenge such an array of competence, many beautiful surprises await the traveller among the dewy shadows. Whoever has made such a journey will not only return with the consciousness that he has doubled his possessions, but that he has also explored a new world--a realm which he can look in the face on the morrow with an exchange of recognition that was truly impossible yesterday. Whether or not all the facts that have been adduced show that plants are conscious organisms in the particulars for which it is claimed, it matters not, for enough have been set forth to demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt the position that they are endowed with a consciousness, no matter how infinitesimally small a part it plays in nature. Everyday observation of the botanist teaches the fact. Sensation, which is consciousness, has preceded in time and in history the evolution of the greater part of plants and animals, unicellular and multicellular, and, therefore, if kinetogenesis, or the doctrine of the effects of molar motion, be true, “consciousness,” as Cope alleges, “has been essential to a rising scale of organic evolution.” Animals which do not perform simple acts of self-preservation must necessarily, sooner or later, perish. Impossible it is to understand how the lowest forms of life, wholly dependent as they are on physical conditions of many kinds, should to-day exist if they were not possessed of some degree of consciousness under stimuli at least. We have but to picture to ourselves the condition of a vertebrate, without general or special sensation, would we obtain a clear perception of the essentiality of consciousness to its existence. If now use, as has been maintained, has modified structure, and so, in coöperation with the environment, has directed evolution, we can understand the origin and development of useful organs, and also how, by parasitism, or some other mode of gaining a livelihood without exertion, the adoption of new and