THE ENERGY OF LIFE EVOLUTION. 



799 



We have now the beginning of an explanation of the element of 

 design in the movements of animals. But, first, the explanation is 

 necessary to account for the long-continued automatic acts which have 

 changed the hard and appa- 

 rently fixed structures of so 

 many of the higher forms of 

 life. 



Automatic and uncon- 

 scious ratiocinative acts are 

 the product of conscious ra- 

 tiocinative acts by the pro- 

 cess of cryptonoy already re- 

 ferred to. This process is 

 one of the most wonderful 

 which the field of science 

 presents to our contempla- 

 tion. It is simply this : that 

 when a brain, or other organ 

 of consciousness, has once 

 acquired an habitual move- 

 ment, consciousness disap- 

 pears from that act, and it 

 enters the unconscious and 

 generally automatic stage. 

 This demonstrates two 

 things : First, that conscious- 

 ness is not necessary to a 

 designed act which has be- 

 come a habit, no matter how 

 complicated that habit may 

 be ; second, that conscious- 

 ness does reside in matter 

 which has not acquired habits, and which therefore does not yet pos- 

 sess the structure which makes such habits possible. 



We now have a true theory of the influence of the environment on 

 an animal. Sensation being understood, the animal proceeds to adapt 

 itself to its surroundings by the adoption of appropriate habits, from 

 which appropriate structures arise. Without such response on the 

 part of the animal, the greater part of the world would have remained 

 uninhabited by all but the lowest forms of life, and these too might 

 have been extinguished. From the simplest temporary methods of 

 defense and protection, animals have developed the habits of laying 

 up stores, of building houses, of the arts of the chase, of migrations 

 over wide territories. There can be no doubt that the constant exer- 

 cise of the mind in self-support and protection has developed the most 

 wonderful of all machines, the human brain, whose function is the most 



Fig. 9. Cast of Brain-Cavity of P ocamklus occi- 

 dkntalis, one half natural size : a, profile ; b, above ; 

 c, below. (Prom New Mexico.) 



