ASSIMILA TION AND INTELLIGENCE. 1 6 9 



gence" he proceeds to observe that both are processes of 

 change, and that without change food cannot be taken into 

 the blood, and so on apparently quite ignoring the fact that 

 there are living creatures which have no digestive organs, 

 living creatures which do not reason, and living creatures 

 which are destitute of blood. Mr. Spencer's "orders of 

 life " seem therefore to be very limited indeed. 



I must, however, clear the ground before proceeding 

 further, and must draw the reader's attention to the mean- 

 ing Mr. Spencer assigns to the term " Assimilation." This 

 he tells us distinctly enough, "is not simply a series of 

 actions, but includes many actions going on together. 

 During mastication the stomach is busy with the food already 

 swallowed; on which it is both pouring out solvent fluids and 

 expending muscular effort. While the stomach is still active, 

 the intestines are performing their secretive, contractile, and 

 absorbent functions ; and at the same time that one meal is 

 being digested, the nutriment obtained from a previous meal 

 is undergoing that transformation into tissue which constitutes 

 the final act of assimilation. So also is it, in a certain sense, 

 with mental changes /" * But I forbear, for in no sense is there 

 any true analogy whatever between mental changes and 

 changes of digestion. In no sense is there any analogy 

 between a brain and a stomach, or between gastric juice 

 and thought. 



With the view " of determining the general characteristics 



* Mr. Herbert Spencer forgets that many living things are destitute 

 of tissue at every period of life. Tissue is not necessary to life. Neither 

 is definite form nor is structure. The term "transformation into 

 tissue" has not been explained by Mr. Herbert Spencer. Want of 

 precision in definition, confusion of ideas, inaccuracy in statement, 

 characterize the chapter on the " proximate definition of life." 



