70 LIFE AND HABIT. 



rule, again adhere to for a vast number of generations, 

 before it will permanently supplant the older habit. 

 In our own case, the habit of breathing like a fish 

 through gills may serve as an example. We have now 

 left off this habit, yet we did it formerly for so many 

 generations that we still do it a little ; it still crosses 

 our embryological existence like a faint memory or 

 dream, for not easily is an inveterate habit broken. 

 On the other hand — again speaking broadly — the more 

 recent the habit the later the fashion of its organ, as 

 with the teeth, speech, and the higher intellectual 

 powers, which are too new for development before 

 we are actually born. 



But to return for a short time to Dr. Carpenter. 

 Dr. Carpenter evidently feels, what must indeed be 

 felt by every candid mind, that there is no sufficient 

 reason for supposing that these little specks of jelly, 

 without brain, or eyes, or stomach, or hands, or feet, 

 but the very lowest known form of animal life, are not 

 imbued with a consciousness of their needs, and the 

 reasoning faculties which shall enable them to gratify 

 those needs in a manner, all things considered, equalling 

 the highest flights of the ingenuity of the highest 

 animal — man. This is no exaggeration. It is true, that 

 in an earlier part of the passage, Dr. Carpenter has said 

 that we can scarcely conceive so simple a creature to 

 " possess any distinct consciousness of its needs, or that 

 its actions should be directed by any intention of its 

 own ; " but, on the other hand, a little lower down he 

 says, that if a workman did what comes to the same 

 thing as what the amoeba does, he " would receive credit 



