SMrTHSONIAN INSTfTUTION LIBRARIES 



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DR. SCHOFiJiiLD, ON HABIT IN MAN. 



comparison, in other words by abstracting these. Dr. Romanes 

 himself, in the Contetnporary Review, vol. iv, regards the higher 

 cognitive powers as resolvable into abstraction. Reasoning is but 

 the linking of general abstract notions (concepts). Tf any animal 

 can note and consider whiteness, it has all the powers we have, 

 and should be able to consider Tightness, and to express in some 

 way its general notions, that is, have language proper, which is 

 made up of abstractions in the shape of concepts. Where is this 

 in the animal world ? If instincts be lapsed intelligence, when 

 and where did the intelligence come in ? 



Returning to Dr. Schotield's paper, I would add that the love 

 of sti'ong drink seems rather too specific as an ingi-ained inheri- 

 tance. Is it not rather a general degenei-acy, or example and 

 early access to intoxicants ? Further, hereditary habit is made to 

 explain the swinging of the arm forward coincidentally with a like 

 movement of the opposite lower limb in walking. If one will try 

 the experiment, he will at once notice that otherwise the body is 

 inconveniently rotated ; this might account for an early and 

 independent formation of the habit in every individual. But all 

 my remarks are incidental to the well-treated subject of the 

 paper, though the main point on which I have dwelt is one of im- 

 portant bearing in otlier relations. 



NOTE. 



Tlie author has seen the foreiifoin"'. He offers no further remarks. 



-Ed. 



