NATURAL SELECTION AND NATURAL THEOLOGY 263 



one of them was soon seized, but at once relinquished, the chick 

 shaking his head. Seizing another, he held it for a moment in 

 his bill, but then dropped it and scratched at the base of his beak. 

 This was enough ; he could not again be induced to seize a piece 

 of orange peel. The obnoxious material was now removed, and 

 pieces of yolk of Q.gg substituted, but they were left untouched, 

 being probably mistaken for orange peel. Subsequently, he looked 

 at the yolk with hesitation, but presently pecked doubtfully, not 

 seizing but merely touching, then he pecked again, seized, and 

 swallowed." 



The words, as they are here quoted, describe the facts as if 

 they were known to be accompanied by consciousness, and to be 

 in all respects like human actions ; and as words are adapted to 

 human needs, this is hard to avoid, although it is so obviously 

 impossible to say whether the chick is conscious or not, that Mor- 

 gan's assertion that his study of young chicks shows that they 

 soon learn what is good to eat and what is unpleasant, and rapidly 

 associate the appearance with the taste, would be more accurate 

 if he had confined himself to some such statement as that his 

 studies teach that they rapidly acquire power to respond to visual 

 stimuli by actions adjusted to those flavors which are associated, 

 in course of nature, with certain optical properties. While the 

 restriction of our descriptions of the actions of animals to words 

 which have no subjective implications would be intolerable to the 

 reader and well-nigh impossible to the writer, we must discriminate, 

 so far as possible, what we really learn by observation from what 

 we infer from the analogy of our own actions. The important 

 point is, that whether actions like those of the new-born lamb are 

 conscious or unconscious, they are not determined by conscious- 

 ness, but are the outcome of innate congenital structure ; although, 

 so far as their fitness for the needs of the animal goes, they are 

 in no way inferior to actions which we acquire only after long 

 training which is accompanied by consciousness and attention and 

 intellectual apprehension of the desired end. 



If adaptations like the muscular coordinations of the new- 

 born lamb, which are manifested without previous experience of 

 their use, are as perfect and as useful as those which are slowly ac- 

 quired by long training accompanied by conscious effort and by 



