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habit ? I suppose, then, the synchronism of neighbour- 

 ing clocks is habit too ! If a man, for his cigarette, 

 strikes a match on his boot at table is that habit ? 

 must it even be imitation ? Rather, is it not natural for 

 every man who feels the want, and even as he feels the 

 want, just at once to resort to the expedient ? Can any 

 one fancy that the suggestion to himself was a matter of 

 habit, or did it even need example ? May not a man 

 unnecessarily waste his reason ? 



Mr. Darwin remarks here further, " Dogs during 

 many generations have, whilst intently looking at any 

 object, pricked their ears, and conversely," etc. ; but is it 

 only " long-continued " habit has enabled them to do 

 this ? Is it really to be said that the attitude of 

 attention a strain is not as natural to an animal as 

 the use of his eyes to see, his ears to hear, or his feet to 

 run ? Or if it is really due to habit, where did the first 

 organism that ever assumed it get it ? Habit can do 

 much to strengthen and promote ; but when did habit in 

 any case prove a first ? 



It will strikingly illustrate the fallaciousness of all 

 such inferences from mere commonplace-book collection, 

 to remind ourselves of the two interpretations of the 

 dog's throwing itself on its back and turning its belly up. 

 Mr. Darwin sees prostrate submission in the attitude ; 

 Mary Cholmondeley, the writer in Temple Bar, saw, on 

 the part of the " amber-eyed dachshund " in the same 

 position only an invitation to " friction where he valued 

 it most." And which interpretation, if indeed either, is 

 to be accepted as the right one, who shall decide ? 



Mr. Darwin, regarding strain in the dog as, so to 

 speak, thesis, would explain the opposite of strain, sub- 

 mission, by the opposite of thesis, " the principle of 

 antithesis" namely. If contracted muscles express such 

 and such emotional state, then it will be natural for an 



