53J COSMIG FRILOSOFHY. [pt. ii. 



■^ment of inner to outer relations, while Pain is a state oi 

 consciousness attendant upon the discordance between innei 

 and outer relations. 



We may now consider a class of facts which at first seem 

 inconsistent with the theory, but which in reality serve 

 further to illustrate it. Animals now and then perform self- 

 destructive actions under circumstances ^^•hich make it diffi- 

 cult to suppose that the performance is not pleasurable. 

 Though the majority of vegetable poisons are disagreeable to 

 the taste, yet this is not always the case ; and hence animala 

 have been known to perish after a greedy meal upon some 

 noxious herb. But here, as in the case of the moth which, 

 in Tennyson's phrase, is " shrivelled in a fruitless fire," there 

 is a new relation in the environment for which there is no 

 corresponding adjustment established in the organism. The 

 cases are like that of the child who ignorantly drinks a 

 sweet poison, or satisfies its desire for muscular activity by 

 climbing out of the window. The dynamic theory of life 

 does not imply the pre-existence of internal relations answer- 

 ing to all possible external relations. Were it so, life w^ould 

 be complete from the outset. For new emergencies there 

 have to be new adjustments. Now manifestly if the whole 

 race of moths could be made to live among lighted candles, 

 one of two things must happen : either there must be gene- 

 rated a tendency to avoid the candles, or the race must be 

 exterminated. If an animal migrates to a district where 

 poisonous herbs abound, its existence can be maintained only 

 on one of two conditions : if it be low in intelligence, a 

 dif'.agreeable taste must be generated, so that the noxious 

 food will be instantly rejected, or the odour must become 

 offensive, so that the taste will be forewarned; but if the 

 anima be possessed of high intelligence, like a bird or 

 mamma'x, it will be enough if the dangerous object is identi- 

 fied by smell or taste, or even by vision or touch, while along 

 with the recognition there occurs an ideal rej)resentation o/ 



