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balcony, being entirely ignorant of the consequences, and so children 
unless they have been taught or have experimentally learnt, will 
attempt the most daring things. A child I know, when 18 months 
old, was slightly burnt with an egg just boiled, and ever afterwards 
when an egg was offered her, she would acutely say, ‘“‘ Burn, burn!” 
Some of you may remember a paper that I read on “ Instinct ” in 
this same month three years ago. I there tried to show that as 
animals possess less brain matter than ourselves, and therefore less 
reasoning powers, so they must have some compensating quality 
for their protection and living, and this quality is instinct—the 
lower the animal in the developmental scale, the more is the power 
of instinct used ; the higher the animal in the scale the more are 
the reasoning powers brought out. 
The distribution of pain is interesting, for many parts that are 
most delicate and require most care are the most sensitive. Take, 
for examples, the ling membrane of the windpipe and the lungs, 
for any foreign body that lodges in these parts is quickly expelled 
if it is by any means possible by the violent cough set up; a grain 
of dust does not long remain in the eye without calling earnestly 
out for removal. 
I well remember when a boy seeing a man break stones with his 
hands only, and wondering how it could be done. Physiology has 
since taught me that the above proceeding need not be a very 
| harmful or painful one. The man, I noticed, had a large mass of 
very hard skin developed at the inner border of the palm of the 
right hand, and this mass of skin was painless, and it was by using 
this as a hammer that he was enabled to break the stones; and so 
in men or women who do much manual work, the outer or non- 
sensitive portion of the skin of the palm and fingers becomes 
thickened, thus protecting the soft sensitive parts underneath; in 
labourers who use nearly the whole of the anterior surface of the 
hand, there is a general thickening ; in rowers, only those portions 
of skin which come in contact closely with the oar would be 
_ thickened, and again in the harpist’s hand, the tips of the fingers 
are only affected. In this latter case the sensitiveness of the 
_ thickened fingers would be diminished if not lost. 
The skin forms an entire covering for the body, and one of its 
uses is to prevent us from being over sensitive—I mean to pain. 
Those parts which are most covered—providing that there are a 
sufficient number of nerve terminations and these be of the neces- 
_ sary kind—are the most sensitive; thus we find the tips of our 
fingers, especially the forefinger, and tip of our tongue are amongst 
the most sensative parts of our body, and are used frequently when 
delicacy of touch is required. Painacts the part of true Conser- 
yatism in many things in life. When the laws of health are un- 
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