228 LESSONS FEOM NATUEE. [CHAP. VII. 



regard to the &quot;abstract&quot; no amount of clearness or definite- 

 ness injures. &quot;The sensible eye may be blinded by light, 

 but the eye of the mind was never blinded by truth.&quot; 



The existence of emotion apart from intellectual apprehen 

 sion need not again be more than adverted to, and little need 

 be said as to that spontaneous tendency to imitation which at 

 least most of us possess in some degree. As to this latter 

 matter, Mr. Darwin remarks : 



&quot; This is exhibited in the most extraordinary manner in certain brain 

 diseases, especially at the commencement of inflammatory softening of 

 the brain, and has been called the echo sign. Patients thus affected 

 imitate, without understanding, every absurd gesture which is made, 

 and every word which is uttered near them, even in a foreign lan 

 guage.&quot; See his Expression of the Emotions, p. 356, where he refers to 

 Dr. Bateman on &quot; Cephalea,&quot; 1870, p. 110. 



To sum up, then, what our rapid survey has seemed to 

 teach us about ourselves, it seems we may establish 



List of them. , , . ... - , r j_* 



the following propositions : Man is a persisting 

 being, consisting of a complex organism, possessing, besides 

 the highest psychical powers already enumerated, the follow 

 ing powers and activities also : 



1. Vegetative powers of nutrition, growth, and reproduction. 



2. A power responding to unfelt stimuli by means of 



nervous interconnections reflex action. 



3. A power of inadvertently performing appropriate actions 



in response to felt stimuli, such actions, termed in 

 stinctive, being provided for beforehand by the special 

 organisation of the body. 



4. A power of experiencing sensible pleasure and pain. 



5. A power of indeliberately perceiving sensible objects, 



of which some start or exclamation may be the sign 

 sensible perception. 



6. A power of effecting the coalescence, agglutination, and 



combination of sensations in more or less complex 

 aggregations, and so simulating inference. 



7. A power of automatic or organic memory, which may 



exhibit itself in unintellectual imitation. 



