The Scoitish Naturalist. 3 



irritability and contractibility of animal tissue, I do not under- 

 take to say." Now, overlooking the inconceivability of their 

 being '' feelings or sensibility " " by mere irritability and con- 

 tractibility of animal tissue," is there no term or fact between 

 consciousness and irritability ? May there not " be feelings or 

 sensibility apart from consciousness " and yet not by mere 

 irritability and contractibility of animal tissue ? '' Conscious " 

 and " psychical " or " mental " are words that should not be 

 used co-extensively. 



In the Contemporary Rev ieiv for Sept. 1875 — p. 622, et seqq.— 

 there is an interesting paper by Lord Blachford, containing a 

 criticism of the views on Automatism of Dr. Carpenter and 

 others. In these views his Lordship describes " molecular 

 movement " as being " invested with a quasi-magical " or 

 " transcendental power." On atoms, he says, there is imposed 

 a " capacity so totally foreign to them as that of supplying the 

 place of contrivance." And the paper sums up — " The ques- 

 tion is, what is the link which, in brutes, connects the action 

 of the sensory with that of the motor nerves, so as to account 

 for the infinite variety of phenomena which we usually interpret 

 to indicate hope, fear, pleasure, pain, anger, love, cunning ? 

 The one answer is, it is a sensitive nature ; the other, it is 

 something else. In the one case we refer them to a cause we 

 know in ourselves ; in the other, without warrant, they are 

 referred to a cause, the nature and appropriateness of which 

 are unknown?" All this forgets or altogether undervalues the 

 latent action of soul, which Dr. Carpenter at least inserts as a 

 third term between molecular and conscious action. In refer- 

 ence to a sensitive nature, the question is, what is absolutely 

 necessary to it ? Is the kind of consciousness which we self- 

 conscious beings know we possess essential to it? Nay, is not, 

 even in us, the action of a sensitive nature competent with 

 such consciousness in abeyance ? 



In a letter in "Mind," vol. I., pp. 13 1-4, "On the Automatic 

 theory of animal activity," in which Dr. Carpenter is again 

 subjected to criticism, Mr. Alexander Main, Arbroath, says, to 

 conclude with, " Philosophers may safely challenge physiologists 

 even to state the automatic theory without contradiction." 

 When the unconscious action of intelligence is admitted, and 

 it is a fact that will be disputed by no one who takes care to 

 acquaint himself with the phenomena, a statement of the auto- 

 matic theory, equal in consistency and in verisimilitude, is easy 



