62 LIFE AND HABIT. 



other remedies have been exhausted. It is mere horse 

 science, akin to the theories of the convulsionists in 

 the geological kingdom, and of the believers in the 

 supernatural origin of the species of plants and animals. 

 Yet it is to be feared that we have not a few among us 

 who would feel shocked rather at the attempt towards 

 a milder treatment of the facts before them, than at a 

 continuance of the present crass tyranny with which 

 we try to crush them inside our preconceived opinions. 

 It is quite common to hear men of education maintain 

 that not even when it was on the point of being 

 hatched, had the chicken sense enough to know that it 

 wanted to get outside the eggshell. It did indeed 

 peck all round the end of the shell, which, if it 

 wanted to get out, would certainly be the easiest way 

 of effecting its purpose ; but it did not, they say, peck 

 because it was aware of this, but "promiscuously." 

 Curious, such a uniformity of promiscuous action 

 among so many eggs for so many generations. If we 

 see a man knock a hole in a wall on finding that 

 he cannot get out of a place by any other means, and 

 if we see him knock this hole in a very workmanlike 

 way, with an implement with which he has been at great 

 pains to make for a long time past, but which he throws 

 away as soon as he has no longer use for it, thus 

 showing that he had made it expressly for the purpose of 

 escape, do we say that this person made the implement 

 and broke the wall of his prison promiscuously ? No 

 jury would acquit a burglar on these grounds. Then 

 why, without much more evidence to the contrary than 

 we have, or can hope to have, should we not suppose 



