44^ Eimer on Growth and Inherita^ice 



insufficient feedinf]^. Another explanation which might be given is 

 that certain individuals began to sacrifice themselves to the require- 

 ments of the community by neglecting to feed themselves to such 

 an extent that their organs no longer attained their full de- 

 velopment.' 



He seems to attach no importance to the character thus 

 assigned to our own highest powers. He admits^ that on 

 his view ' inteUigence and reason become merely mechanical, 

 but in a way which does not diminish the im^portance of 

 instinct' Most certainly it does not, nor have we the shghtest 

 desire to diminish its importance. But it becomes obvious 

 on the shghtest reflection that we are compelled to estimate 

 instinct by means of reason, and that it is impossible to 

 estimate reason by means of instinct. Reason is our only 

 and ultunate standard in every judgment we make, and 

 we know that the activity of our highest mental powers is 

 certainly not an activity which is merely mechanical ; then 

 any theory which necessarily and logically results in the con- 

 clusion that our own highest powers are ' merely mechanical * 

 is thereby refuted by a recluctio ad absurdum. 



But Professor Elmer's criticisms on the speculations of 

 some other dreamers (the fabric of whose visions he con- 

 siders baseless, as Ave do many of both theirs and his) are 

 very noteworthy. 



The question referred to is how, upon the principles of 

 those he criticises, life, sensibility, intelligence, and volition, 

 could ever come to be ? This problem is made short work 

 of by assuming that sensibility and will are possessed not 

 only by every fragment of every living thing, but by every 

 atom of every dead thing also — an assumption which we 

 need hardly say is absolutely gratuitous, and is taken as 

 proved on the implied argument, ' How otherwise should 

 our system be true ? ' 



1 P. 284. 



