ON" ARCH^STHETISM. 413 



known phenomenon. We know that it is true of ourselves and 

 of many other animals, that while all new movements have to be 

 learned by repeated attempts, with each succeeding movement 

 the act becomes easier, and that finally it can be performed with- 

 out requiring any attention whatever. If continued, the move- 

 ment becomes automatic, so that it may be or is performed in a 

 state of unconsciousness. In the words of Spencer, nervous cur- 

 rents move most readily along accustomed channels. Thus the 

 " habits " of animals may be looked on as movements acquired 

 in consciousness, and become automatic through frequent repeti- 

 tion. Not only this, but the organization thus produced in the 

 parent is transmitted to the succeeding generation, so that the 

 movements of the latter are automatically and often unconsciously 

 performed. This view may be even extended to the purely vital 

 functions, with every probability of its being the true explanation 

 of their origin and development. On a former occasion * I wrote : 

 *'In accordance with this view, the automatic * involuntary ' 

 movements of the heart, intestines, reproductive systems, etc., 

 were organized in successive states of consciousness, which con- 

 ferred rhythmic movements whose results varied with the ma- 

 chinery already existing and the material at hand for use. It is 

 not inconceivable that circulation may have been established by 

 the suffering produced by an overloaded stomach demanding dis- 

 tribution of its contents. The structure of the Coelenterata offers 

 the structural conditions of such a process. A want of propulsive 

 power in a stomach or body sac occupied with its own functions, 

 would lead to a painful clogging of the flow of its products, and 

 the 'voluntary' contractility of the body or tube wall being thus 

 stimulated, would at some point originate the pulsation necessary 

 to relieve the tension, Thus might have originated the ' con- 

 tractile vesicle ' of some protozoa, or contractile tube of some 

 higher animals ; its ultimate product being the mammalian heart. 

 So with reproduction. Perhaps an excess of assimilation in well- 

 fed individuals of the first animals led to the discovery that self- 

 division constituted a relief from the oppression of too great 

 bulk. With the increasing specialization of form, this process 

 would become necessarily localized in the body, and growth would 

 repeat such resulting structure in descent as readily as any of 

 the other structural peculiarities. No function bears the mark 



* " Consciousness in Evolution." " Penn Monthly," August, 1875, p. 565. 



