2 20 Address to the British Association 



is utterly without action, and is but a superfluous accompani- 

 ment of physical changes which would go on as well without 

 it? 



As we may be confident that thought not only is but also 

 acts, as well as that there are things which are not psychical, 

 but which are physical ; so I would urge that the conception 

 of living things, which I venture to put before you, is one 

 which may be rationally entertained. 



Assuming for the moment and for argument's sake that 

 it may be accepted, what light does our knowledge of our- 

 selves throw upon the intimate life-processes of lower 

 organisms ? We know that with us a multitude of actions, 

 which are at first performed with consciousness, come to be 

 performed unconsciously; we know that we experience 

 sensations ^ without perceiving them ; we know also that 

 countless organic activities take place in us under the 

 influence and control of the nervous system, which either 

 never rise into consciousness at all, or only do so under 

 abnormal conditions. Yet we cannot but think that those 

 activities are of the same generic nature, whether we feel, 

 perceive, or attend to them or not. The principle of in- 

 dividuation in ourselves, then, evidently acts with intelH- 

 gence in some actions, with sentience in many actions, but 

 constantly in an unperceived and unfelt manner. Yet we 

 have seen it undeniably intervene in the chain of physical 

 causation. 



An animal is an organism, all the actions of which are 

 necessarily determined by the adjustments of its various 

 organs, and by its environment. But even its sensations 

 cannot be regarded as mere accompaniments of its activities, 



^ As when having gazed vacantly through a window we revert to the 

 pages of a manuscript we may be writing, and see there the spectra of the 

 window bars we had before unconsciously seen. Here the effect on the 

 organism must have been similar to what it would have been had we attended 

 to it — i.e. it was an unfelt sensation. 



