Marvels of Pond-Life. 83 



lated to meet the special difficulty. IIow is tliis ? Does 

 any one of the difficulties which the bee or the ant is 

 able to get over, produce precisely that kind of electrical 

 disturbance, or polar arrangement of nerve particles 

 that is necessary to stimulate the first step of the action 

 by which the difficulty is surmounted ; and does the 

 new condition thus established stimulate the second 

 step, and so forth, or can the bee, within certain limits, 

 really think, design, and contrive ? 



No questions are more difficult of solution ; but 

 while protesting against a tendency to undervalue all 

 life below that of man, we must remember we have in 

 our bodies processes going on which are not the result 

 of volition, as when the blood circulates, and its 

 particles arrange themselves in the pattern required to 

 form our tissues and organs, and also that many of our 

 actions belong to the class termed by physiologists, 

 "reflex,^' that is, the result of external impressions upon 

 the nervous system, in which the sentient brain takes no 

 part. Thus when a strong light stimulates the optic 

 nerve, the portion of brain with which it is connected 

 in its turn stimulates the iris to contract the pupil ; 

 and it is supposed that after a man has begun to walk, 

 through the exercise of his will^ he may continue to 

 walk, by a reflex action ; as his feet press the ground 

 they transmit an /impression to the spinal cord, and the 

 legs receive a fresh impulse to locomotion, although the 

 mind is completely occupied with other business, and pays 

 no attention to their proceedings.* The ordinary move- 



* See Carpenter's * ]\Ianual of Physiology.' 



