XI.] 



MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS. 



279 



But these matters are of little moment to anyone but 

 the Keviewer and those persons who may incautiously 

 take their physiology, or psychology, from him. The 

 really interesting point is this, that when he fully 

 admits that animals "may possess all the first four 

 groups of actions," he grants all that is necessary for the 

 purposes of the evolutionist. For he hereby admits that 

 in animals "impressions received result in sensations 

 which give rise to the observation of sensible objects," 

 and that they have what he calls u sensible perception." 

 Nor was it possible to help the admission ; for we have 

 as much reason to ascribe to animals, as we have to 

 attribute to our fellow-men, the power, not only of per- 

 ceiving external objects as external, and thus practically 

 recognizing the difference between the self and the not- 

 self ; but that of distinguishing between like and unlike, 

 and between simultaneous and successive things. When 

 a gamekeeper goes out coursing with a greyhound in 

 leash, and a hare crosses the field of vision, he becomes 

 the subject of those states of consciousness we call visual 

 sensation, and that is all he receives from without. 

 Sensation, as such, tells him nothing whatever about the 

 cause of these states of consciousness ; but the thinking 

 faculty instantly goes to work upon the raw material of 

 sensation furnished to it through the eye, and gives rise 

 to a train of thoughts. First comes the thought that 

 there is an object at a certain distance ; then arises 

 another thought the perception of the likeness between 

 the states of consciousness awakened by this object to 

 those presented by memory, as, on some former occasion, 

 called up by a hare ; this is succeeded by another thought 

 of the nature of an emotion namely, the desire to 

 possess the hare ; then follows a longer or shorter train of 

 other thoughts, which end in a volition and an act the 

 loosing of the greyhound from the leash. These several 



