94 The Scottish Naturalist. 



Marshall Hall, Dr. Carpenter, and Dr. Laycock, the first estab- 

 lishing on a scientific basis the fact of reflex action, the second, 

 extending the automatic principle to the region of sensation, and 

 the third, extending its operations still farther to that region of 

 action, the organ of which is the brain — by these researches, 

 it has been, once for all, made out that automatism is a character 

 pervading large spheres of both animal and human action ; it 

 has been established that there is automatic action not only of 

 the nervous organism, but of the psychological powers them- 

 selves, which are found, for their outward results, not to require 

 always a conscious, intelligent regulation, but in much that they 

 do to act perfectly machinewise. Such investigations, so far 

 from requiring us to set aside the principle of the Cartesian 

 view as an explanation of the animal soul, plainly set it on a 

 sure basis of physiological and psychological science ; and 

 require us to hold by it. The case accordingly has now come 

 to this, that no sooner is the principle of automatism, established 

 and corrected by facts and extended by analogy, applied to its 

 task of fathoming the abyss of the animal soul than it shows 

 itself to be a fathoming line, the like of which we have never 

 seen before. No clue ever adhibited to the mystery has had 

 such effect. Animals, indeed, are not unconscious, unintelli- 

 gent automata, as Descartes would call them; but they are auto- 

 mata notwithstanding — automata conscious, and sensitive, and 

 rational too. 



It was well that these researches and results on automatism 

 were at hand at the juncture. Of late, as already noticed, the 

 evolutionist had been attracted to the animal soul by more 

 than astonishment at its mystery. His phlosophy here com- 

 menced from another side. He needed those researches to 

 help him over the great gulf that he found yawning, both in 

 popular and scientific opinion, between the animal and human 

 souls. Hitherto, if any doctrinal system found a certain opinion 

 on the animal soul at all essential to its wants, it was theological 

 orthodoxy. The Cartesian view, e.g. seemed to get rid of 

 certain theological difficulties that other views raised or failed 

 to evade. Now, it is the doctrine of continuity that gives 

 interest to that question. To a continuous evolution of living 

 beings it is held to be essential that no such wide gulf exist 

 between animals and man, as a thorough going non-identity of 

 their psychological characters would be. Hence, the wide 

 attention given to the psychological character of animals — an 



