200 CONSCIOUSNESS IN 



Frogs and other lower animals, in which the spinal*cord 

 has been completely cut across so as to prevent impres- 

 sions reaching the hi'ain. The adverse reasoning of 

 G. H. Lewes and others would prove too much. It would 

 warrant the belief that all nerve centres are seats of 

 Conscious Sensibility ; and the acceptance of this view 

 would easily lead to its extension, and soon make it 

 almost impossible to deny a similar attribute to the 

 leaves of the Sun-dew and other ' sensitive ' j)lants — or, 

 indeed, to stop even here. Endless confusion might thus 

 be produced, without commensurate gain. 



A fairly legitimate conclusion has, therefore, been 

 drawn, to the effect that not only do many nerve actions 

 exist which are unaccompanied by Conscious States in the 

 ordinary acceptation of the term, but that such nerve 

 actions may evoke movements which are just as suitable 

 and appropriate, as responses to the several antecedent 

 impressions, as if the movements in question had actually 

 been evoked under conscious guidance. The fact that 

 there is an apparent ' fitness ' in the movement which is 

 made in consequence of, and as a response to, a stimulus, 

 does not by any means alone entitle us to infer that the 

 corresponding impression had a conscious side, or was a 

 real Sensation. It may have been the case or may not. 

 At all events, it should be recollected that the quality of 

 fitness decidedly characterizes the motor responses to 

 many nerve actions belonging to tlie * reflex ' category, as 

 occurring in ourselves, and in which the antecedent 

 impression has certainly not been attended by any phase 

 of Consciousness. Fitness of response seems, indeed, 

 as was pointed out in a preceding chapter, to be almost 

 a matter of necessity for all nerve actions which have 

 been sufficiently often repeated — even where they occur in 

 simple organisms possessing only the most rudimentary 



