A STUDY OF LOWER LIFE. 



453 



sriven rise to the conception — widely known and 

 discussed in these days under the name of the 

 " automatic doctrine " — that the acts of all ani- 

 mals, including those of man — " the paragon of 

 animals," as Hamlet terms him — bear in reality a 

 much closer relation to their surroundings than 

 they are generally supposed to possess. The 

 simple acts of a hydra's life, and the most in- 

 tricate operations of the human mind ; the ner- 

 vous action which enables a polyp to obtain a 

 particle of food ; and the nerve-changes evolving 

 thoughts which emanate from minds like those 

 of Goethe, Shakespeare, Newton, and Milton — 

 thoughts which will reecho in the minds of men 

 throughout all time — are thus held to present, 

 when analyzed out to their fullest extent, a strik- 

 ing community of origin. The polyp is said to 

 be really an " automaton," in that it simply acts 

 through its nervous powers, as these powers are 

 first acted upon by outer impressions ; and man, 

 we are told, must also be held as sharing this 

 automaton nature, since his acts are determined 

 in like manner by outward circumstances, and 

 simply by the succession or order in which these 

 circumstances have been impressed upon his ner- 

 vous centres. " The question is," as Dr. Carpen- 

 ter has expressed it, " whether the Ego is com- 

 pletely under the necessary domination of his 

 original or inherited tendencies modified by sub- 

 sequent education, or whether he possesses 

 within himself any power of directing and con- 

 trolling these tendencies." Or as the case is put 

 by Prof. Huxley : " Descartes's line of argument 

 is perfectly clear. He starts from reflex action 

 in man, from the unquestionable fact that in our- 

 selves codrdinate purposive actions may take 

 place without the intervention of consciousness 

 or volition, or even contrary to the latter. As 

 actions of a certain degree of complexity," con- 

 tinues Huxley, " are brought about by mere 

 mechanism, why may not actions of still greater 

 complexity be the result of a more refined mech- 

 anism ? " 



As may readily be noted, this theory of the 

 physical origin of man's mental powers neces- 

 sarily carries with it a special and peculiar inter- 

 pretation of man's moral nature and obligations. 

 For it implies the belief that we cannot act in 

 any other fashion than is determined by our char- 

 acter ; and this latter, in its turn, results from or 

 is developed by the action of outer and physical 

 circumstances upon the organism. Conscious- 

 ness, or that knowledge of self which most peo- 

 ple hold lies at the root and foundation of our 

 mental existence, except as a secondary matter, 



is thus put altogether out of court ; and the 

 powers of mind come in this view to represent 

 so many effects of the long-continued action of 

 experience and custom in inducing various men- 

 tal states as the result of certain combinations 

 of outer impressions. 



The fierce conflict to which the discussion of 

 this automatic doctrine has given rise can be 

 readily understood and explained. It is no light 

 matter to assert that the mental powers and in- 

 tellect of man are, after all, simply material in 

 their nature and origin, and that they merely 

 represent a high development and modification 

 of the simple nervous impressions seen in lower 

 states of existence. Yet there is a latent truth 

 in this view of the matter, which, when recog- 

 nized and brought into relation with facts and 

 ideas external to such a theory, presents us with 

 a rational explanation of the origin of man's 

 mental nature. Whatever may have been the 

 origin of man's intellect, there can firstly be no 

 question of the impassable nature of the gulf 

 which exists between the human type of mind 

 and the instincts of all other forms of life. Even 

 if man's total origin from a lower form or forms 

 were a proved fact, the recognition of the fact 

 could never lessen by an iota our estimation of 

 the infinite superiority of man, regarded as a 

 thinking, intelligent being, over his nearest al- 

 lies. Preconceived notions and ideas might, and 

 probably would, revolt against such an idea of 

 the origin of man's mind ; but the spirit of a 

 liberal science would content itself with the fact 

 that no considerations regarding its origin and 

 deveJopment can detract from the high or im- 

 measurable superiority of the human over every 

 other type and form of nervous functions. 



Turning next to inquire into the existence of 

 automatic or instinctive acts among animals, we 

 may, in the first place, be surprised to note that 

 in the hydra, sensitive although the polyp is 

 seen to be to outward impressions, no traces of 

 a nervous system or of analogous organs can be 

 discerned. The polyps are thus literally sensi- 

 tive, without possessing any appreciable or visible 

 apparatus for exercising that sense. The hydra 

 is, however, by no means alone in this respect. 

 The sea-anemones, which are animals nearly re- 

 lated to the hydra, are equally as sensitive as, if not 

 more so than, the latter, since the anemones may 

 be seen to withdraw their tentacles and to contract 

 their bodies on being touched, or even if the 

 light falling upon them be suddenly intercepted, 

 as by the shadow of a passing cloud. Yet the 

 anemones, like hydrae, utterly want a nervous 



