204 THE FOUNDATIONS OF ZOOLOGY 



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selection alone; for even if we admit all that has been said, i 

 seems to him to be self-evident that a reflex action must, from it 

 very nature, already be given in a state of working efficiency if ; 

 is to work at all so as to count for anything in the struggl 

 for life. 



The history of the adjustment between tactile and muscula 

 sensations and the orderly balancing of all the movements cor 

 cerned in locomotion has been so long and complicated that w 

 know little of its details, but I am not sure I understand wha 

 Romanes means by working efficiency. While slight irritatio: 

 of the sole is followed by retraction of the foot, more prolonged 

 irritation is followed, especially in the young, who have not ye 

 learned to repress them, by indefinite but violent involuntar 

 movements in many parts of the body, and I fail to see why an 

 of these vague movements might not have been picked out b 

 natural selection, if peculiarly useful, and gradually made mor 

 delicate and more definite and more useful; nor can I see wh 

 each step in this process of gradual specialization may not hav 

 been beneficial, or why it may not have had selective value. 



All admit that while natural selection picks out, and preserves 

 it produces nothing, and if we can show how it corrects our bodil; 

 movements and reduces them to exactness by giving us distinc 

 actions instead of confused and perplexed ones, I fail to see wh; 

 this process should not be gradual. Romanes, it is true, seem 

 to believe that responses which are now brought about involun 

 tarily or unconsciously, by adaptive structure, would be easier t( 

 understand if we could show that they arose as " consciously intel 

 ligent adjustments " ; for he holds that the inheritance of th( 

 effects of use furnishes an explanation of the origin of the adap 

 tations which natural selection picks out and preserves, inasmucl 

 as it shows how natural selection has been aided by *' conscious!) 

 intelligent action " ; but I cannot reconcile with other opinion; 

 which I find in Romanes's works, his belief that a reflex responst 

 would be any easier to understand if we could show that it was 

 at one time, rational and accompanied by consciousness anc 

 volition. ^ 



Many thinkers of no little eminence, Romanes among theji 

 hold the opinion that not only instincts and habits, but rationa 



