DARWm, AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 20$ 



actions as well, may some time prove to be reflex from the begin- 

 ning to the end of their history. There are men of science who 

 believe that it may some time be proved that when we perform an 

 action because our reason approves it, neither the response nor the 

 approval of our reason is anything more than exhaustive know- 

 ledge of our organic mechanism would lead one to expect. No 

 one who admits that, for all he knows to the contrary, rational 

 actions may be reflex in this sense, can, in consistency, believe 

 that the origin of an adaptive mechanism which is used intelli- 

 gently is any easier to understand than the origin of one which is 

 used unconsciously. 



Romanes is not content with the admission that, for all one 

 knows, rational actions may thus be mechanical ; for he accepts 

 this as a thing proved and accomplished, and says, " I think we 

 may fairly expect that within a time less remote than the two cen- 

 turies which separate us from Hobbes, the course of ideas in a given 

 train of thought will admit of having its footsteps tracked in the 

 corresponding pathways of the brain. Be this, however, as it 

 may, even now we know enough to say that, whether or not these 

 footsteps will ever admit of being thus tracked in detail, they are 

 all certainly present in the cerebral structure of each one of us. 

 What we know on the side of mind as logical sequence is, on the 

 side of the nervous system, nothing more than the passage of 

 nervous energy through one series of cells and fibres rather than 

 another ; what we recognize as truth is merely the fact of the 

 brain vibrating in tune with nature." ^ 



While thus convinced that rational actions are mechanical, 

 Romanes holds that proof that instincts which are now mechan- 

 ical arose as " consciously intelligent adjustments " would make 

 the history of these adjustments easier to understand. 



" If function produces structure in the race, as it does in the 

 individual," he says (" Darwin and after Darwin," I., p. %6\ "the vol- 

 untary and frequently repeated actions may very well have led ta 

 an organic integration of the neuro-muscular mechanism concerned. 



" Thus with regard to the phenomena of reflex action in gen- 

 eral, all the facts are such as this theory (the inheritance of the 

 effects of use) requires, while many of the facts are such as the 



1 " Mind and Motion, and Monism," p. 17. 



