AP PLICA TION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 55 



49 1 3 by a fluke, without long training in arithmetic, 

 any more than an agricultural labourer would be able 

 to operate successfully for cataract. If, then, a grown 

 man cannot perform so simple an operation as that, 

 we will say, for cataract, unless he have been long 

 trained in other similar operations, and until he has 

 done what comes to the same thing many times over, 

 with what show of reason can we maintain that one 

 who is so far less capable than a grown man, can 

 perform such vastly more difficult operations, without 

 knowing how to do them, and without ever having 

 done them before ? There is no sign of " fluke " 

 about the circulation of a baby's blood. There may 

 perhaps be some little hesitation about its earliest 

 breathing, but this, as a general rule, soon passes 

 over, both breathing and circulation, within an hour 

 after birth, being as regular and easy as at any time 

 during life. Is it reasonable, then, to say that the 

 baby does these things without knowing how to do 

 them, and without ever having done them before, and 

 continues to do them by a series of lifelong flukes ? 



It would be well if those who feel inclined to 

 hazard such an assertion would find some other 

 instances of intricate processes gone through by people 

 who know nothing about them, and never had any 

 practice therein. What is to know how to do a 

 thing ? Surely to do it. What is proof that we 

 know how to do a thing ? Surely the fact that we can 

 do it. A man shows that he knows how to throw 

 the boomerang by throwing the boomerang. No 

 amount of talking or writing can get over this ; ipso 



