m. XVI.] TH£ JS VOLUTION OF MIND. 159 



follows ; cerebral nutrition entailing greater waste than 

 occurs in any other part of the system. But with constant 

 repetition the resistance to the passage of uudulatious along 

 the new transit-lines disappears entirely. Nutrition has so 

 modified them that, as above explained, they become lines 

 of traction instead of lines of resistauce. As "we say, 

 nothing can prevent the one group of ideas or movements 

 from following the other. The discharges are made instantly, 

 and along with a minimum duration of nutritive change 

 there is a minimum of consciousness. The combinations 

 become permanently organized in the brain-structure, and 

 in becoming permanently organized they become instinctive 

 or automatic. 



We may now also begin to understand why it is that in 

 man the organization of instincts, primary and secondary, is 

 continued through the early years of life, while in the other 

 animals the majority of the instincts are already organized 

 at birth. The distinction is not an absolute one, as many of 

 the higher vertebrates, both birds and mammals, and in a 

 marked degree the anthropoid apes, cannot take care of 

 themselves immediately after birth, though they soon become 

 able to do so. The low^er we descend the animal scale, the 

 more completely organized is the psychical life of the newly- 

 born organism. The reason is obviously to be found in the 

 greater speciality and complexity, and the consequent rela- 

 tive infrequency, of the coordinations made by the highest 

 animals, and especially by man. When, for example, we 

 put forth the hand to grasp an object, the muscular adjust- 

 ments are as instinctive as those of the fly-catcher pouncing 

 on an insect ; " volition being concerned merely in setting 

 the process going." But with us, the impressions which we 

 receive and the motions which we make are endlessly varied, 

 and the complex combinations of them occur severally with 

 less frequency than is the case with the simpler combina- 

 tions formed by lower animals. They are accordingly not 



