Eimer on Growth and Inheritance 443 



so that it was bent between the last and middle joints. Two 

 of her sons were born with the very same peculiarity, and 

 Dr. Yosseler was one of them. 



It may be a relief to some of our readers to turn from 

 these questions to our author's remarks concerning the 

 higher faculties of animals. His whole contention is indeed 

 vitiated by his non-comprehension of his own higher faculties; 

 but that does not hinder his anecdotes from being amusing, 

 nor is there any danger of our being misled by them if only 

 such facts and laws as we have elsewhere called attention to 

 be duly borne in mind. That Professor Eimer does indeed 

 misunderstand his own higher powers is plainly shoAvn by 

 his definition of consciousness. ' By consciousness,' he tells us,^ 

 ' I understand the sensation of the condition, as affected by 

 the outer world, of the brain at the moment.' As if 

 ' consciousness ' and ' sensation ' were not widely different ; 

 and as if we could not be perfectly, intensely conscious with- 

 out even believing that either a ' brain ' or ' an outer world ' 

 existed. We leave Professor Eimer to settle this matter with 

 the ideahsts. 



Here, also, he reiterates that sad confusion between the 

 abstract and the concrete — the ideal and the real — which we 

 before stigmatised. No wonder that he confounds the intel- 

 lectual state we call ' consciousness ' with a ' feeling about the 

 condition of the brain ' ! 



' It is certain,' he exclaims,^ ' that rigidly logical reasoning 

 must necessarily admit the conception that individuals are 

 organs ; and species and genera, by virtue of their definite 

 structure adapted to definite ends, are organs of a higher 

 order of the whole living world.' This is just as if he said 

 that a cannon was a weapon, and that an implement of war 

 was a weapon of a higher order I 



Such errors, however, in no way impair his credit as a 



1 P. 223. - P. 225. 



