OUR SUBORDINATE PERSONALITIES. 123 



first principles when they had once mastered any par- 

 ticular process, would, in the common course of events, 

 stand a better chance of continuing their species, and 

 thus of transmitting their new power to their de- 

 scendants. 



M. Ribot declines to pursue the subject further, 

 and has only cursorily alluded to it. He writes, how- 

 ever, that, on the "obscure problem" of the difference 

 between reflex and psychological actions, some say, 

 " when there can be no consciousness, because the 

 brain is wanting, there is, in spite of appearances, only 

 mechanism," whilst others maintain, that " when there 

 is selection, reflection, psychical action, there must 

 also be consciousness in spite of appearances." A 

 little later (p. 223), he says, " It is quite possible that 

 if a headless animal could live a sufficient length of 

 time " (that is to say, if the hind legs of an animal 

 could live a sufficient length of time without the 

 brain), " there would be found in it" (them) "a conscious- 

 ness like that of the lower species, which would 

 consist merely in the faculty of apprehending the 

 external world." (Why merely ? It is more than 

 apprehending the outside world to be able to try to 

 do a thing with one's left foot, when one finds that one 

 cannot do it with one's right.) " It would not be 

 correct to say that the amphioxus, the only one among 

 fishes and vertebrata which has a spinal cord without 

 a brain, has no consciousness because it has no brain ; 

 and if it be admitted that the little ganglia of the 

 invertebrata can form a consciousness, the same may 

 hold good for the spinal cord." 



