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NATURE AND MAN. 



"goes through the opposite set of operations, until he comes to 

 "iDe seated in security upon the back of the hand." — {Fortnightly 

 Review, Nov. 1874, p. 567). 



Now, that Man is himself continually making yet more elabo- 

 rate adjustments of his muscular movements, under circumstances 

 which forbid the idea that they are in any way directed by his 

 conscious will, is expressly shown in various parts of the present 

 work. Some of these actions, as coughing and sucking, are 

 originally or pi'imarily automatic ; and can be experimentally 

 shown not to depend upon cerebral instrumentality, except 

 when performed in obedience to a volitional mandate. Others, 

 as walking erect, are originally performed under the conscious 

 purposive direction of the mind; but, when they have once 

 become habitual, they may be repeated involuntarily, and even 

 unconsciously, by a secondary or acquired automatism, the 

 mechanism of which has constructed itself in virtue of the 

 tendency of the nervous system to grow to the mode in which it is 

 habitually exercised. And this is equally true of those more 

 special activities which have been acquired by " training," — 

 such as rope-dancing, music-playing, juggling with balls, etc. ; 

 for these may be performed (as we are accustomed truly 

 enough to say) "mechanically" by any individual by whom 

 they have been so habitually repeated as to have become a 

 " second nature." 



Of this general principle, of which numerous examples will 

 hereafter come before the reader, the following singularly curious 

 illustration, which I have lately received from a trustworthy source 

 (a clergyman in the north of England), may be here presented : — 

 " While I was a student in Dublin University, I was at an 

 "evening party at which a lady was asked to play for dancing. 

 " Unfortunately she had taken far too much at supper ; and was, 

 " in fact, after she had begun to play, so drunk as to be totally 

 " unable to rise off the stool. I was standing near the piano, 

 " and saw her eyes close, her head fall forward, and give every 

 "manifestation of sleep except snore aloud. But her playing 

 "went on in perfect time; and, in fact, the difficulty was, when 

 " she had ended a waltz or quadrille, to make her stop ; for when 

 "she was shaken out of sleep, it was evidently her intention to 



