1884.] OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND OF THE SPECIES. 46/ 



nine years after the operation (excision of the elbow) which had been 

 performed on account of injury — the man having in the interval acted 

 as guard on a railway, swinging himself from one carriage to another 

 while the train was in motion, with the injured arm, quite as easily 

 and securely as with the other. The ulna was found united to the 

 humerus by ligament ; the end of the radius was polished off, 

 and played on the humerus and on the ulna, a material something 

 like cartilage being interposed. The ends of the bones of the forearm 

 were locked in by two processes projecting downwards from the 

 humerus, and strong lateral, and still stronger anterior and posterior 

 ligaments, also bound them to the latter bone." It would be easy to 

 bring forward a great number of more or less similar cases. 



The amount of reproduction of lost parts of which many of the 

 lower animals are capable every naturalist knows. It is also a 

 notorious and very noteworthy fact that in both man and the lower 

 animals, the processes of repair take place the more readily theyounger 

 the age of the injured individual may be. But these unconscious hut 

 practically teleological processes of repair are often preceded by actions 

 which every one would call instinctive. The actions here referred to 

 are such as the throwing off (by a Lobster, Crab, or Spider) of an 

 injured limb in order that by its separation at a suitable spot its 

 reproduction may be brought about. But this spontaneous removal 

 of the limb is only the first act, and a necessary act, of the process 

 of its reproduction. It is (as has been observed by Hartmann ') 

 analogous to the reproduction, by a larva, of its injured cocoon, or 

 by a Spider of its torn net. They are all reparative actions accom- 

 panied by feelings of different degrees. 



A consideration of the process of remedial reproduction in the 

 individual, naturally leads us onto the consideration of the repro- 

 duction of the individual itself. 



It would be a quite superfluous task here to make more than a 

 general reference to the wonderful series of changes which each 

 embryo of a Hydra tuba, an Echinus, a Sepia, a Butterfly, a Batra- 

 chian, and a Man goes through duiing its individual process of 

 development, or ontogeny. 



This process, in its perfect unconsciousnesses like reflex action, but 

 it is far more wonderful, since in the earliest stages even nerve-tissue 

 is absent and has itself to be formed. In the accuracy of its direc- 

 tion towards a useful end, it is the very counterpart of the most 

 developed Instinct ; nor, if the impulses by which adult individuals 

 are led to seek and to perform those processes which give rise to the 

 embryo are to be called instinctive, is it easy to see how the term 

 "instinctive" can be refused to that impulse by which each deve- 

 loping embryo is led to go through those processes which give rise 

 to the adult. 



Can these analogies be carried further still, and can we, from the 

 consideration of Instinct in the widest sense of that term, throw any 



1 I would refer my hearers to E. von Hartmann's work on ' The Unconscious,' 

 which they will find very suggestive, and to which I gladly acknowledge many 

 obligations, as regards my treatment of this subject. 



