128 LIFE OF 



system, is independent of the will and of habit ; nerve 

 force being generated in excess by strong emotions. 



In discussing all these principles we discover how every 

 thought and every circumstance of the great naturalist 

 seem to have been utilised in his life work. " I have 

 noticed that persons in describing a horrid sight, often 

 shut their eyes momentarily and firmly, or shake their 

 heads as if not to see, or to drive away, something dis- 

 agreeable ; and I have caught myself, when thinking in 

 the dark of a horrid spectacle, closing my eyes firmly." 

 " I noticed a young lady earnestly trying to recollect a 

 painter's name, and she first looked to one corner of the 

 ceiling, and then to the opposite corner, arching the one 

 eyebrow on that side, although of course there was 

 nothing to be seen there." " Many years ago I laid a 

 small wager with a dozen young men that they would not 

 sneeze if they took snuff, although they all declared that 

 they invariably did so ; accordingly they all took a pinch, 

 but from wishing much to succeed, not one sneezed, 

 though their eyes watered, and all, without exception, 

 had to pay me the wager." " I put my face close to the 

 thick glass-plate in front of a puff-adder in the Zoological 

 Gardens, with the firm determination of not starting back 

 if the snake struck at me ; but as soon as the blow was 

 struck, my resolution went for nothing, and I jumped a 

 yard or two backwards with astonishing rapidity. My 

 will and reason were powerless against the imagination 

 of a danger which had never been experienced." " I 

 observed that though my infants started at sudden 

 sounds, when under a fortnight old, they certainly did 

 not always wink their eyes, and I believe never did so. 



