Habit and Instinct. 461 



of an occurrence as now and not then, of a touch as due 

 to a solid body; and the conception of space, time, and 

 causation ; so is there a vast difference between a percep- 

 tion of an injury as happening to one's self, and a con- 

 ception of self as the actual or possible subject of painful 

 consciousness. This difference is clearly seen by Mr. 

 Mivart, who therefore speaks of the consentience of brutes 

 as opposed to the consciousness of man. Consciousness 

 he regards as conceptual ; consentience as perceptual.* 

 And, as before stated, I should be disposed to accept his 

 nomenclature, were it not for its philosophical implications. 

 For Mr. Mivart regards the difference between conscious- 

 ness and consentience as a difference in kind, whereas I 

 regard it as a generic difference. I believe that consentience 

 (perceptual consciousness) can pass and has passed into 

 consciousness (conceptual consciousness) ; but Mr. Mivart 

 believes that between the two there is a great gulf fixed, 

 which no evolutionary process could possibly bridge or 

 span. 



The perceptual volition of animals, then, is a state of 

 consciousness arising when, as the outcome of perception and 

 emotion, motor-stimuli prompting to activity conflict with 

 inhibitory stimuli restraining from activity. The animal 

 chooses or yields to the stronger motive, and is conscious 

 of choosing. But it cannot reflect upon its choice, and 

 bother its head about free-will. This involves conceptual 

 thought. When physiologists have solved the problem of 

 inhibition, they will be in a position to consider that of 

 volition. At present we cannot be said to know much 

 about it from the physiological standpoint. 



Still, as before indicated, the fact of inhibition is un- 

 questionable and of the utmost importance. It has before 

 been pointed out that through inhibition, through the 

 suppression or postponement of action, there has been 

 rendered possible that reverberation among the nervous 

 processes in the brain which is the physiological concomi- 

 tant of aesthetic and conceptual thought. We have just 



* In the sense in which I have used the word ; not as he uses it himself. 



