378 



THE CAT. 



[CHAP. xi. 



All such animals however, as those just mentioned, have a well 

 developed nervous system ; but there are other animals in which 

 symmetry of form is carried to the highest degree, while yet no 

 trace of a nervous system is to be detected in them. 



Such creatures are the Radiolarians minute marine organisms of 



Fig. 163. DORATASPIS POLYANASTRA. ADULT. 



almost the simplest structure as regards their soft substance, but 

 which have siliceous skeletons of extreme complexity and beauty, 

 and, at the same time, of marvellous symmetry. 



10. In such an animal as the cat, then, we have indeed evidence 

 of a principle of individuation ; for in it we have not only symmetry 

 of organization and harmonious organic action (as in the lowly 

 organized creatures just referred to), but also sense perceptions, 

 which meet in a central sensitive faculty able to discriminate the 

 odorous from the coloured and the sapid from the audible. 



Not that there is any reason to think that the cat can appreciate 

 the odours, &c., as such, but only that it is practically impressed by 

 the relations and distinctions between its own sensations as well as 

 between the objects which elicit them. It has, in fact, not con- 

 sciousness but " CONSENTIENCE." 



11. But, as we have seen, its nervous system ministers to a 

 vast number of actions which are unfelt as well as to its felt actions, 

 while its life is also made up of actions which the nervous system 



