ARE ANIMALS AUTOMATONS? 729 



These movements are performed with the utmost steaclmess and pre- 

 cision, and you may vary the position of your hand, and the frog, so 

 long as you are reasonably slow in your movements, will work back- 

 ward and forward like a clock. And what is still more remarkable is 

 this, that, if you put him on a table, and put a book between him and 

 the light, and give him a little jog behind, he will jump — take a long 

 jump, very possibly — but he won't jump against the book; he will 

 jump to the right or to the left, but he will get out of the way, show- 

 ing that, although he is absolutely insensible to ordinary impressions 

 of light, there is still a something which passes through the sensory 

 nerve, acts upon the machinery of his nervous system, and causes it 

 to adapt itself to the proper action. 



I need not say that since those days of commencing anatomical 

 science when criminals were handed over to the doctors, we cannot 

 make experiments on human beings, but sometimes they are made for 

 us, and made in a very remarkable manner. That operation called 

 war is a great series of physiological experiments, and sometimes it 

 happens that these physiological experiments bear very remarkable 

 fruit. A French soldier, a sergeant, was wounded at the battle of 

 Bareilles. The man was shot in what we call the left parietal bone. 

 The bullet, I presume, glanced off, but it fractured the bone. He had 

 enough vigor left to send his bayonet through the Prussian that shot 

 him. Then he wandered a few hundred yards out of the village, where 

 he was picked up and taken to the hospital, where he remained some 

 time. When he came to himself, as usual in such cases of injury, he 

 was paralyzed on the opposite side of the body, that is to say, the right 

 arm and the right leg were completely paralyzed. That state of things 

 lasted, I think, the better part of two years, but sooner or later he re- 

 covered from it, and now he is able to walk about with activity, and 

 only by careful measurement can any difference between the two sides 

 of his body be ascertained. At present this man lives two lives, a nor- 

 mal life and an abnormal life. In his normal life he is perfectly well, 

 cheerful, and a capital hospital attendant, does all his work well, and 

 is a respectable, well-conducted man. That normal life lasts for about 

 seven-and-twenty days, or thereabouts, out of every month; but for a 

 day or two in each month — generally at intervals of about that time — 

 he passes into another life, suddenly, and without warning or intima- 

 tion. In this life he is still active, goes about just as usual, and is to 

 all appearance just the same man as before ; goes to bed and undresses 

 himself, gets up, makes his cigarette and smokes it, and eats and drinks. 

 But in this condition he neither sees, nor hears, nor tastes, nor smells, 

 nor is he conscious of any thing whatever, and has only one sense-organ 

 in a state of activity — viz., that of touch, which is exceedingly delicate. 

 If you put an obstacle in his way he knocks against it, feels it, and goes 

 to the one side. If you push him in any direction he goes straight on, 

 illustrating, as well as he can, the first law of motion. You see I have 



