PROFESSOR TYND ALL'S ADDRESS. e-jj 



its enyironment. Mr. Spencer's fundamental principle is, that between 

 these two factors there is incessant interaction. The organism is 

 played upon by the environment, and is modified to meet the require- 

 ments of the environment. Life he defines to be " a continuous adjust- 

 ment of internal relations to external relations." 



In the lowest organisms we have a kind of tactual sense difiused 

 over the entire body; then, through impressions from without and 

 their corresponding adjustments, special portions of the surface be- 

 come more responsive to stimuli than others. The senses are nascent, 

 the basis of all of them being that simple tactual sense which the sage 

 Democritus recognized 2,300 years ago as their common progenitor. 

 The action of light, in the first instance, appears to be a mere disturb- 

 ance of the chemical processes in the animal organism, similar to that 

 which occurs in the leaves of plants. By degrees the action becomes 

 localized in a few pigment-cells, more sensitive to light than the sur- 

 rounding tissue. The eye is here incipient. At first it is merely ca- 

 pable of revealing differences of light and shade produced by bodies 

 close at hand. Followed as the interception of the light is in almost 

 all cases by the contact of the closely-adjacent, opaque body, sight in 

 this condition becomes a kind of " anticipatory touch." The adjust- 

 ment continues ; a slight bulging out of the epidermis over the pig- 

 ment-granules supervenes. A lens is incipient, and, through the oper- 

 ation of infinite adjustments, at length reaches the perfection that it 

 displays in the hawk and the eagle. So of the other senses; they are 

 special difterentiations of a tissue which was originally vaguely sensi- 

 tive all over. 



With the development of the senses the adjustments between the 

 organism and its environment gradually extend in space^ a multii^lica- 

 tion of experiences and a corresponding modification of conduct being 

 the result. The adjustments also extend in time^ covering continually 

 greater intervals. Along with this extension in space and time, the 

 adjustments also increase in specialty and complexity, passing through 

 the various grades of brute-life and prolonging themselves into the 

 domain of reason. Very striking are Mr. Spencer's remarks regard- 

 ing the influence of the sense of touch upon the development of intel- 

 ligence. This is, so to say, the mother-tongue of all the senses, into 

 which they must be translated to be of service to the organism. Hence 

 its importance. The parrot is the most intelligent of birds, and its 

 tactual poAver is also greatest. From this sense it gets knowledge 

 unattainable by birds which cannot emj^loy their feet as hands. The 

 elephant is the most sagacious of quadrupeds — its tactual range and 

 skill, and the consequent multiplication of experiences, which it owes 

 to its wonderfully adaptable trunk, being the basis of its sagacity. 

 Feline animals, for a similar cause, are more sagacious than hoofed 

 animals — atonement being to some extent made, in the case of the 

 horse, by the possession of sensible prehensile lips. In the Primates 



