278 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 



Be it interesting to many or few, herein lies enfolded 

 the secret hitherto most jealously guarded from human 

 scrutiny an enigma to which no student of nature 

 can be indifferent. None but a physiologist, which, 

 of course, I have not the slightest pretence to be, need 

 presume to offer any help to its solution; but any 

 intellect of moderate training may derive advantage 

 from recognising and examining the nicety of the 

 problem. Modern lawyers have pronounced that, from 

 the moment of conception, the human embryo has the 

 nature and rights of a distinct being of a citizen 

 and accordingly the law deals with one who procures 

 abortion as a criminal. Plato and Aristotle sanctioned 

 the current opinion of their day that ' it was but a part 

 of the mother, and that she had the same right to 

 destroy it as to cauterise a tumour upon her body.' l 

 Between these two extreme opinions perhaps lies the 

 truth, namely,, that at a certain stage of development 

 the foetus in one of the higher mammals acquires 

 individual, probably sentient, though still unconscious, 

 automatism. This is hardly a suitable place for the 

 discussion of a theme of this kind. Let us take a 

 bird's egg, as more convenient to handle. 



Consciousness may seem too big a term to connote 

 the chick's sensation of imprisonment within the shell, 

 and its impulse to escape, as indicated by hammering 

 and cheeping ; though it might pass without comment 

 as explanatory of the action of the adult hen, thrust- 

 ing her neck vigorously through the bars of the coop 

 and straining for liberty. But Mr. Hudson has 



1 Lecky's European Morals, vol. i. p. 94 [Ed. 1869], 



