REASONING. 367 



zation of brain-activity be the fundamental fact of reasonable 

 thought, we see why intense interest or concentrated pas- 

 sion makes us think so much more truly and profoundly. 

 The persistent focalization of motion in certain tracts is the 

 cerebral fact corresponding to the persistent domination in 

 consciousness of the important feature of the subject. 

 T\'hen not 'focalized,' we are scatter-brained; but when 

 thoroughly impassioned, we never wander from the point. 

 None but congruous and relevant images arise. When 

 roused by indignation or moral enthusiasm, how trenchant 

 are our reflections, how smiting are our words ! The whole 

 network of petty scruples and by-considerations which, at 

 ordinary languid times, surrounded the matter like a cob- 

 web, holding back our thought, as Gulliver was pinned to 

 the earth by the myriad Lilliputian threads, are dashed 

 through at a blow, and the subject stands with its essential 

 and vital lines revealed. 



The last point is relative to the theory that what was 

 acquired habit in the ancestor may become congenital ten- 

 dency in the offspring. So vast a superstructure is raised 

 upon this principle that the paucity of empirical evidence 

 for it has alike been matter of regret to its adherents, and 

 of triumph to its opponents. In Chapter XXVIII we shall 

 see what we may call the whole beggarly array of proof. 

 In the human race, where our opportunities for observation 

 are the most complete, we seem to have no evidence what- 

 ever which would support the hypothesis, unless it possibly 

 be the law that city-bred children are more apt to be 

 near-sighted than country children. In the mental world 

 we certainly do not observe that the children of great 

 travellers get their geography lessons with unusual ease, 

 or that a baby whose ancestors have spoken German for 

 thirty generations will, on that account, learn Italian any 

 the less easily from its Italian nurse. But if the con- 

 siderations we have been led to are true, they explain 

 perfectly well why this law should not be verified in the 

 human race, and why, therefore, in looking for evidence 

 on the subject, we should confine ourselves exclusively to 

 lower animals. In them fixed habit is the essential and 



