238 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM y 



Descartes' hypothesis that brutes are unconscious 

 machines, it does not follow that he was wrong in 

 regarding them as automata. They may be more 

 or less conscious, sensitive, automata; and the 

 view that they are such conscious machines is that 

 which is implicitly, or explicitly, adopted by most 

 persons. When we speak of the actions of the 

 lower animals being guided by instinct and not by 

 reason, what we really mean is that, though they 

 feel as we do, yet their actions are the results of 

 their physical organisation. We believe, in short, 

 that they are machines, one part of which (the 

 nervous system) not only sets the rest in motion, 

 and co-ordinates its movements in relation with 

 changes in surrounding bodies, but is provided 

 with special apparatus, the function of which is 

 the calling into existence of those states of con- 

 sciousness which are termed sensations, emotions, 

 and ideas. I believe that this generally accepted 

 view is the best expression of the facts at present 

 known. 



It is experimentally demonstrable any one 

 who cares to run a pin into himself may perform a 

 sufficient demonstration of the fact that a mode 

 of motion of the nervous system is the immediate 

 antecedent of a state of consciousness. All but 

 the adherents of " Occasionalism," or of the doc- 

 trine of " Pre-established Harmony " (if any such 

 now exist), must admit that we have as much 

 reason for regarding the mode of motion of the 



