RATIONALISM AND PSYCHOLOGY 235 



Stimuli associated with consciousness it can learn nothing 

 by experience. 



If there be any feeble consciousness associated with 

 such reflex action, it cannot be determined ; but the 

 consciousness of the higher animals and man, which is 

 often obviously accompanied with reflex action, depends 

 upon the efficiency of the superficial grey matter of the 

 brain over and above the sub-cortical tissues. 



Thus is it all through the animal kingdom from man 

 to an amceba, that innumerable actions evincing all the 

 characteristics of reason are done by unconscious proto- 

 plasm alone. 



Even in the actual construction of cells, the rule is for 

 the nucleus in the middle to divide into two leaving a 

 space between them. Then a " cell-plate," to form a new 

 wall, is laid down between them ; thus dividing the cell 

 into two. This process is repeated ad infinitum till the 

 animal or plant ceases to grow. 



Two special cases have been described above,^ but I 

 will here repeat where difficulties had to be met. When 

 the nucleus was situated at the side of the cell, it began 

 to divide into the two halves which travelled across the 

 cell, laying down the cell-plate as they went along, until 

 they reached the opposite side. 



In another case the cell-plate was made by means of 

 the nucleus bulging out into a flattened spheroid till it 

 touched the opposite sides. 



Practical protoplasmic reasoning might very well 

 define this behaviour ; though it was undoubtedly due to 

 unconscious automatism which performs these apparently 

 rational proceedings. That is precisely what it is, from 

 the formation of cells to the habits of a monkey. 



^ Part I., chap, xii., pp. 62, 64. 



