INTRODUCTORY. 



higher animals " feel " will not be disputed. They give 

 all the external signs of sensitivity, and they possess 

 that special organic structure — a nervous system — 

 which we know supplies all our organs of sensation. 

 In the absence of any bodily mutilation, then, we 

 have no reason to suspect that their nervous system and 

 organs of sense do not act in a manner analogous to our 

 own. On the other hand, to affirm that the familiar 

 vegetables of our kitchen-gardens are all endowed with 

 sensitivity, is not only to make a gratuitous affirmation, 

 but one opposed to evidence, since no vegetable 

 organisms possess a nervous system ; and it is a uni- 

 versally admitted biological law, that structure and 

 function go together. If, then, there are any organisms 

 whatever which do not feel, while certain other organisms 

 do feel, then (as a door must be shut or open) there is, 

 and must be, a break and distinction between the one 

 set and the other. 



Some persons may object : *' The transition is so 

 gradual, it is impossible to draw an exact line between 

 sentient and insentient organisms." Even if this assertion 

 be true, such an objection would be of no avail, because 

 an apparently continuous and uninterrupted course of 

 action is often not really such, but only seems to be 

 so on account of our organization — our very limited 

 power of vision. Let us suppose an action to take 

 place at precisely such a rate as to permit of our seeing 



preposterous to assume that at a certain stage of complexity of 

 atomic constitution, and as a necessary result of that alone, sensi- 

 tivity should arise. " Here," he tells us, " all idea of mere 

 complication of structure producing the result is out of the 

 question." 



