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CHAPTER IV. 



APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING PRINCIPLES TO ACTIONS 

 AND HABITS ACQUIRED BEFORE BIRTH. 



But if we once admit the principle that consciousness 

 and volition have a tendency to vanish as soon as 

 practice has rendered any habit exceedingly familiar, 

 so that the mere presence of an elaborate but uncon- 

 scious performance shall carry with it a presumption 

 of infinite practice, we shall find it impossible to draw 

 the line at those actions which we see acquired after 

 birth, no matter at how early a period. The whole 

 history and development of the embryo in all its 

 stages forces itself on our consideration. Birth has 

 been made too much of. It is a salient feature in the 

 history of the individual, but not more salient than a 

 hundred others, and far less so than the commence- 

 ment of his existence as a single cell uniting in 

 itself elements derived from both parents, or perhaps 

 than any point in his whole existence as an embryo. 

 For many years after we are born we are still very 

 incomplete. We cease to oxygenise our blood vicari- 

 ously as soon as we are born, but we still derive our 

 sustenance from our mothers. Birth is but the begin- 

 ning of doubt, the first hankering after scepticism, the 



