370 



THE CAT. 



[CHAP. xi. 



Much below instinct are those activities before referred to as due 

 to reflex action, and which exist in the cat as well as in ourselves, 

 but which cannot take place without an innate power of being im- 

 pressed and affected by stimuli which are not felt. 



Altogether then, THE CAT'S ACTIVE POWERS may be summed up 

 as follows : 



1. Vegetative powers of growth and reproduction. 



2. A power of locomotion and of motion of various parts of the 



body. 



3. A power of being impressed by unfelt stimuli. 



4. A power of responding to such impressions by appropriate 



movements reflex action. 



5. A power of responding to felt stimuli by simple actions, plainly 



involuntary excito-motor action. 



6 . A power of blindly performing appropriate complex acts, by seem- 



ingly voluntary, actions in response to felt stimuli instinct. 



7. A power of experiencing pleasure and pain. 



8. A power of experiencing vivid feelings from material objects 



sensation. 



9. A power of reproducing by mental images past feelings in a 



faint manner. 



10. A power of associating such images with fresh sensations 



according to the different relations in which they have co- 

 existed sense perception. 



11. A power of associating images in groups imagination. 



it as "lapsed intelligence," brought 

 about by the "logic of feeling." That 

 there is a logic of feeling that there is a 

 logic in even insentient nature is not 

 to be denied ; but that logic is not the 

 logic of the crystal, not of the brute, but 

 of their CREATOR. Dr. Bastian, in his 

 recent work (The Brain as an Organ of 

 Mind, p. 221), also endeavours to show 

 that instinct is not a special faculty. 

 But all these writers avoid considering 

 the real difficulties which oppose their 

 views in either direction. Thus Mr. 

 Spencer shirks all consideration of the 

 phenomena which his hypothesis fails 

 to explain such as the instincts of the 

 wasp Sphex and of the carpenter bee. 

 Dr. Bastian does the same ; contenting 

 himself by gratuitously asserting as to 

 ants and bees (I. c., p. 235) : "There 

 can be little doubt, that if our means of 

 knowledge were greater than it is, we 

 should be able to explain these and all 

 other instincts by reference to the doc- 

 trines of ' inherited acquisition ' and 

 'natural selection,' either simply or in 

 combination." At the other end of the 

 mental scale, all the highest phenomena 

 are also simply ignored by all these 

 writers alike. Nothing is said by one of 



them as to our apprehension of Being, 

 truth, or goodness. The much to be 

 lamented death of Mr. Lewes cut short 

 his work abruptly, so that it may be, 

 had he lived, he would have addressed 

 himself to the problem ; but it is strange 

 that neither Mr. Spencer nor Dr. Bastian 

 should have attempted to grapple with 

 it. _ Without so doing, all their con- 

 clusions may be simply disregarded, as 

 the phenomena they notice are all beside 

 the main issue they profess to raise. As 

 to instinct, Dr. Bastian seeks to explain 

 it by reference to the evolution of con- 

 tractile hearts, oviducts, and intestines. 

 But docs he mean to imply that these 

 contractions were in their first origin 

 deliberate and voluntary? Was the 

 original "desire for food " a desire which 

 a creature deliberately chose to have, or 

 was it developed by " natural selection," 

 those organisms that had no desire for 

 food becoming extinct ? But how could 

 natural selection ever originate a desire 

 for food ? To what could it have been due 

 but to an IMPLANTED IMPULSE ; and if 

 such an impulse must be acknowledged at 

 all, why not acknowledge it with respect 

 to instinct, the facts as to which so em- 

 phatically demand its recognition I 



