410 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



immediately shook its feet.' 'It is well known,' he 

 had before said, c that cats dislike wetting their feet, 

 owing, it is probable, to their having aboriginally 

 inhabited the dry country of Egypt.' This explanation 

 may not be the true one ; but even if not, the real 

 explanation we may be sure is quite as singular. Now 

 the fact to be explained is analogous to the circum- 

 stance we are dealing with. We see in young creatures, 

 like kittens, habits which cannot have been acquired 

 from observation. These habits depend (almost cer- 

 tainly) on inherited peculiarities of the brain's confor- 

 mation. May it not be that it is so with the 

 superstitious tremors we have been considering ? Those 

 fears which affect children too young to know what 

 fear is, those fears which in after life are but partially 

 under the control of reason, may indicate a condition 

 of the brain inherited not from parents or grand- 

 parents, but through long lines of .descent even, 

 perhaps, from the ages when to our savage progenitors 

 every unexplained sight or sound might indicate the 

 presence of a lurking enemy. During long ages of 

 savage life the conformation of the brain must have 

 become permanently affected by the mental action 

 resulting from the necessity for continual watchfulness 

 against brute and human enemies. In the dark, 

 particularly, such watchfulness was at once more 

 requisite and more difficult ; and it seems by no means 

 unlikely that the anxious feelings which many expe- 

 rience constantly in the dark, as well as those peculiar 

 tremors which are occasionally experienced in the 



