EVOLUTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 33 



will be in proportion to the number and complexity of these ac- 

 quisitions. 



The lowest exhibitions of contiguity, or association in time, 

 do not require a nervous system for their disj^lay. The Protozoa, 

 which are without nervous system, exhibit its results in their de- 

 terminate seizure of some small objects as food and rejection of 

 others. The sea anemones (Actinia) display some preferences as 

 to the substances to which they attach themselves. All power of 

 taking food implies the retention of the impression of pleasure on 

 first accidentally coming in contact with it. This power is then 

 present in protoplasmic beings of the simplest type. 



All the movements of animals have been shown to dejiend on 

 a direction of this motive force, consequent on a necessity for 

 avoiding pain and obtaining pleasure. It may be regarded, more- 

 over, as a truth that heightened vitality or energetic conversion 

 of force is always a state of pleasure, while depressed vitality is 

 generally the cause (as well as a consequence) of pain. Hence the 

 pleasurable nature of taking food, and the early education of an 

 animal in the distinction between objects nutritive and non-nutri- 

 tive. 



It is well known, however, that food may be taken, and many 

 or all other functions and acts be performed automatically, or in 

 a state of unconsciousness. This is as much the case with the 

 highest powers of thought (as in unconscious cerebration) as with 

 the humblest acts which satisfy bodily wants. The question then 

 arises whether these acts may not arise in a state of unconscious- 

 ness. So far as our own self-knowledge goes, we would reply in 

 the negative. All intellectual functions are i^roduced by educa- 

 tion, and education involves consciousness at every step. Other 

 habitual and automatic acts were originated consciously, but the 

 contiguity of parts of the act becoming impressed on the brain, 

 future repetitions of it are reflex or unconscious. We have seen 

 that the development of the habits of animals is in strict obedi- 

 ence to the preference for pleasure and avoidance of pain. Pleas- 

 ures and pains of course express sensations which involve con-, 

 sciousness. It then appears to me that, in the lowest animal, con- 

 sciousness must be present at the time of origin of every habit, 

 but that it may have been soon lost in each case, and the habit 

 become automatic. 



If this position be true, every subsequent addition to or change 

 of habits must have been accompanied by a resuscitation of con- 

 3 



