262 LEISURE-TIME STUDIES. 



Thus, as far as our investigations have extended, the 

 ordinary distinctions on which stress has naturally been 

 laid with the view of separating animals from plants, have 

 one by one been proved either to be wholly untenable, or 

 at least to present so many glaring exceptions that their 

 value has become considerably deteriorated in the eyes of 

 modern scientists. There yet remains one point for con- 

 sideration, however, upon which considerable stress may 

 very naturally be laid, as a distinctive characteristic of one 

 of the great groups of living beings. Driven back into 

 the very citadel of former beliefs by the assault of ad- 

 vancing research, many may assert that the presence of a 

 nervous system in animals, and the exhibition of those 

 phenomena we collectively term " sensation " and " feeling," 

 are definite characteristics of animals alone. Let us briefly 

 inquire whether this last assertion has reserved for it a 

 better fate than that which has befallen our other points of 

 separation. 



The simplest acts of life in higher animals and even in 

 animals of low grade, are regulated by the nervous system, 

 which, in whatever form it is represented, may be defined 

 as that by which the animal is brought into relation with 

 the world in which it lives. The differences, in fact, be- 

 tween the nervous acts of the highly organised animal and 

 those of the lower form, as will be discussed in another 

 place, are rather those of degree than of kind ; and there 

 is every reason to believe that even those complicated 

 phenomena to which we apply the collective term " mind " 

 represent in large measure the high or extreme develop- 

 ment of the instincts and nervous acts seen in animals of 

 lowly grade. Unquestionably the beginnings of a nervous 

 system, as exemplified in the animal series, consist of means 

 whereby the being is enabled to exercise a low degree of 

 sensitiveness to outward impressions. The lower we pro- 

 ceed in the scale of animal life, the fainter does this sensi- 

 tiveness appear to become. And although it can hardly be 

 said that any animal form absolutely wants the means for 



