LIFE AND HABIT. 



CHAPTER I. 



ON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS. 



It will be our business in the following chapters to 

 consider whether the unconsciousness, or quasi- uncon- 

 sciousness, with which we perform certain acquired 

 actions, would seem to throw any light upon Embry- 

 ology and inherited instincts, and otherwise to follow 

 the train of thought which the class of actions above- 

 mentioned would suggest ; more especially in so far as 

 they appear to bear upon the origin of species and the 

 continuation of life by successive generations, whether 

 in the animal or vegetable kingdoms. 



In the outset, however, I would wish most distinctly 

 to disclaim for these pages the smallest pretension 

 to scientific value, originality, or even to accuracy 

 of more than a very rough and ready kind — for unless 

 a matter be true enough to stand a good deal of 

 misrepresentation, its truth is not of a very robust 

 order, and the blame will rather lie with its own 

 delicacy if it be crushed, than with the carelessness of 



