CHAP. XIII.] LOWER ANIMALS. 203 



higher nerve centres, and they may procure the continu- 

 ance of definite muscular movements in response to mere 

 unconscious nerve actions ; although, originally, the 

 occurrence of simile- responses could only have been 

 ensured by the directive and constructive influence apper- 

 taining to an undivided Attention or Consciousness. 



For such reasons as these we are robbed of all definite 

 grounds for anything like correct inference, as to the 

 degrees of ' sentience ' accompanying the different nerve 

 actions of the countless hosts of lower animals. We 

 have a fair warrant for inferring that, in the higher Mam- 

 mals, Feeling is an appanage of the action of the same 

 kinds of nerve centres as suffice to evoke it in ourselves 

 however different the Feelings of such creatures may be 

 in their wealth of emotional and intellectual accompani- 

 ments. But concerning the seats, so to speak, of the 

 subjective states of animals lower than these, we must 

 necessarily remain very much in the dark. We should, 

 indeed, find it difficult to disprove, even though we did 

 not believe, the doctrine of Descartes, that they in common 

 with others were mere unconscious automata. 



(3.) We are not entitled to conclude that the Sensations 

 experienced by lower animals, through the intervention of 

 their various sense-organs, have more than a general 

 resemblance to the Sensations which we experience,through 

 the medium of what appear to be corresponding organs. 



In some cases, indeed, we cannot decide as to the pre- 

 cise kind of sense endowment which pertains to an organ 

 legitimately regarded as in some way sensitive. The 

 impressions which the Nudibranch Mollusk receives 

 through its large tentacles, or that the Insect receives 

 through its antennas in addition to those of touch, may be 

 principally those of smell or they may be something 



