58 LEISURE-TIME STUDIES. 



and all unconsciously to himself, avoids his neighbours and the 

 lamp-posts, is so far an automaton in that the complicated 

 muscular movements of his limbs, and the general equilibrium 

 of the body are being co-ordinated independently of his 

 knowledge and will. And very many other examples might 

 be cited in support of the allegation that automatic acts 

 and movements play a very important part in the existence 

 of higher animals. 



Thus we may hold it to be fully proved that automatism 

 has a veritable existence, and really forms the basis of all 

 nervous acts. That in itself it constitutes the essence of 

 all the intellectual acts of man is, however, a conclusion by 

 no means involved in the preceding statement. That the 

 " physical " act of executing any movement such an act 

 being exemplified by the change which nerve-tissue undergoes, 

 even in the act of thinking is connected and associated 

 with another action, the " mental " act, cannot be doubted, 

 if it be admitted that we possess a rational cognisance of 

 ourselves and our actions. And that the " mental " act in 

 the higher animal may represent the actual source, origin, and 

 direct or indirect cause of the physical act, is also, as far as 

 human cognisance can assure us, an undoubted fact. Hence, 

 we are forced to conclude that, however this mental act has 

 originated in man, it has really come to assume a place, 

 dominion, and power in the constitution and working of his 

 nervous system which is utterly unrepresented in any lower 

 form. If man may be proved or believed to be " the slave 

 of antecedent circumstances," it must also be admitted that 

 a new power has arisen or has been developed out of the 

 action upon his nervous system of these same circum- 

 stances, this power being represented by the formation of 

 the conscious, self-knowing Ego or Mind. 



That hereditary influences and inherited constitution 

 possess a powerful influence in moulding the mind, as they 

 undoubtedly operate in producing a certain conformation of 

 body, is but a reasonable belief. The formation of the charac- 

 ter of the child and, through the development of the latter, 



