33^ Organic Nature s Riddle 



found that the amputated end of the radius had formed a 

 fresh poHshed surface, and played both on the humerus and 

 the uhia, a material something like cartilage being inter- 

 posed. The ends of the bones of the forearm were locked 

 in by two processes projecting downwards from the humerus, 

 and also strong lateral and still stronger anterior and 

 posterior ligaments again bound them fast to the last- 

 named bone.^ It would be easy to bring forward a number 

 of more or less similar cases. The amount of reproduction 

 of lost parts which may take place in many of the lower 

 animals is astonishing. Thus the tails of lizards, if broken 

 off, will grow again, and the limbs of newts will be repro- 

 duced, with their bones, muscles, blood-vessels, and nerves. 

 Even the eye and the lower jaw have been seen to be 

 reproduced in the last-named animals. If certain worms 

 be cut in two, each half will become a perfect animal, the 

 head producing a new tail, and the tail a new head ; and a 

 worm called a nais has been cut into as many as twenty-five 

 parts Avith a like result. But the most remarkable animal 

 for its power of repairing injuries is the fresh- water hydra, 

 almost any fragment of which will, under favourable circum- 

 stances, grow into a new and entire fresh animal. It is also 

 a notorious and very noteworthy fact that, in both man and 

 the lower animals, the processes of repair take place the 

 more readily the younger the age of the injured individual 

 may be. But these unconscious, yet practically teleological 

 processes of repair, are often preceded by actions which 

 every one would call instinctive. 



There is yet another class of organic vital actions to 

 which I must advert, which are at once utterly unconscious, 

 while the fact that they are directed to a distinct end is 

 indisputable ; in fact they are purposive, in the very highest 

 degree that any unconscious actions can be purposive. They 



^ See Mr Timothy Holmes's System of Surgei-y, 3rd edit. vol. iii. p. 746. 



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