The Scottish Naturalist. 149;. 



ANIMAL PSYCHOSIS. 



( Continued from p. 96. ) 

 By the Rev. J. Wardrop. 



THIS view of Dr. Carpenter — that the animal, psychically, 

 is not a free productive power, but only obeys stimuli, 

 that is, so far from commanding motives, does not feel them, 

 and is no cause at all, having no will, is the most feasible view, 

 so far as it goes, yet offered on the whole question. It accords 

 exactly with what a careful observation of animal action might 

 suggest to any one. On the other hand Mr. Huxley's is, it may 

 be said visibly, not true to the facts. But first, irrespective of 

 whether Mr. Huxley's results answer to the facts, either on the 

 human, or on the animal side, there is an error and an incon- 

 sistency in his method. How is it that Mr. Huxley admits the 

 excitation of " states of consciousness which are termed sensa- 

 tions, emotions, and ideas," as the result of the ingoing mole- 

 cular movement of the animal nervous organism? He does not 

 strike on these things with the point of his scalpel. He does 

 not see them under his microscope. They are not among the 

 small dust of his balance. They are not to be detected by physi- 

 ological observation in any way whatever. They are got only 

 by the " introspective method," as it is called. Mr. Huxley has 

 looked into his own bosom, and he has taken what he found 

 there, and by a legitimate analogy employed it in philosophising 

 on what he observes in animals. But if Mr. Huxley allows the 

 introspective method to be the voucher for certain facts which he 

 accepts and works with, consistency binds him to allow its testi- 

 mony in the case of all facts, whatever they are, in reference to 

 which it tenders testimony. Now men are not more conscious of 

 the passive power of sensations — they are not more conscious 

 of feeling emotions and having ideas, than they are of their 

 active power — their real efficiency in muscular movements. 

 Mr. Huxley must be held to the same witness for an explanation 

 of the efferent phenomena, that himself has adduced on the 

 afferent. And it is a witness clean against him. If the human 

 consciousness vouches for anything, it vouches for this, that 

 movements are often the result of a state of consciousness — that 

 the will, the personality, the man, is a free productive power, 

 and does ''stand in a causal relation to action." Irrespective of 



