204 LESSONS FROM NATUEE. [CHAP. VII. 



He also makes a very important admission when be says : 



&quot; It might fairly be said that the Indian fish, which catches insects 

 flying over the surface by hitting them with jets of water, exhibits an 

 adjustment of inner relations to outer relations as special as that shown 

 by the archer (who shoots high according to the distance of the object 

 aimed at); but considering that in the fish nothing more is implied 

 than an automatic connection between certain visual impressions and 

 certain muscular contractions, it cannot be held that there is anything 

 like the complexity of correspondence.&quot; Op. cit. p. 353. 



Surely the very same principle may be applied to explain 

 the actions of the parrot, the pointer, the sapajou cracking his 

 nut with a stone, or the chimpanzee drinking out of his tea 

 cup. There is nothing in any of these actions indicating a 

 power different in kind from that evidently possessed by the 

 fish, so aiming his watery jet as to hit in the air an object seen 

 from beneath the water in spite of the effects of refraction. 

 Finally, may be cited the following passage : 



&quot; The animal s nervous system is played upon by external objects, 

 the clustered properties of which draw out answering chords of feelings, 

 followed by faintly-reverberating chords of further feelings ; but it is 

 otherwise passive it cannot evolve a consciousness that is independent 

 of the immediate environment.&quot; Op. cit. pp. 564, 565. 



Here we have the necessary results of an absence of self- 

 consciousness. Beings devoid of self-consciousness 



&quot;differentiate nothing consciously; they move, but they know not 

 where, or why, or when ; they see, but they know not colour as dis- . 

 tinguished from sound, which they bear equally unconsciously. They 

 know not their eye as such ; they have senses and perceive, but they 

 know not anything as such. Memory they may have, but they dis 

 tinguish not the remembrance from the perception.&quot; The Psychology 

 of Scepticism and Phenomenalism. By James Andrews. Glasgow : 

 J. Maclefuse, 1874. 



It may be well here to consider the anecdotes narrated 

 Mr Darwin s by Mr. Darwin in support of the rationality of 

 anecdotes. brutes. Before doing so, however, we must remark 

 that his statements given on the authority (sometimes second 

 hand authority) of others afford little evidence of careful 



