93 
of the contraction of the heart of a recently killed frog under 
stimulus, “in conceiving of contractility as a property of protoplasm 
than there is of conceiving of attraction as a property of the 
magnet.” And in this instance, the divergence from apparently 
purely mechanical motion is certainly not obvious. But there are 
other matters of observation in which there is, as he himself says, 
the “semblance of volition” of a very striking kind, as e.g., the case 
cited by him, of the swarm-spore (i.e. practically, the young) of 
certain plants, which when an obstacle is placed in its course (I am 
quoting from his address) “will, as if to avoid it, change the 
direction of its motion, and retreat by a reversion of the stroke of 
its cilia.” The explanation of this phenomenon supplied by him 
is, “that the irritability of the protoplasm of the ciliated spore, 
responding to an external stimulus, sets in motion a mechanism 
derived by inheritance from its ancestors, and whose parts are correlated 
to a common end—the preservation of the individual.” But this seems 
difficult to regard as an explanation, except in connexion with the 
idea of consciousness. 
And in the instance ofthe beheaded frog, referred to in 
Heckel’s essay, consciousness does not exist in the frog itself ; 
so far as the frog as a whole is concerned, the movement caused 
by stimulation must be automatic; but the ganglion in the 
spinal cord may be conscious; and it is difficult to disconnect 
the idea of consciousness from that of an apparent sensibility 
to pain, or discomfort. The accidents of the dead inorganic 
world seem to constitute a continual call on mind (however 
we may attempt to explain or define the word) to assert 
itself. The animate by modifying, preventing or continuing the 
influences of the inanimate, does on the whole by slow degrees 
gain the mastery-over the inanimate; and apparent accidents, by 
becoming the occasions of the action and development of mind, 
may thus claim to be seen no longer as accidents, but as links 
ina chain (however interrupted from time to time by retrogressions 
and degenerations)—a chain, nevertheless, of assured progress. 
There is however another question connected with this matter, 
which is one of very great importance, in which it may be quite 
