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balcony, being entirely ignorant of the consequences, and so children 

 Tmless they have been taught or have experimentally learnt, will 

 attempt the most daring things. A child I know, when 18 months 

 old, was slightly burnt with an egg just boiled, and ever afterwards 

 when an egg was offered her, she would acutely say, " Burn, burn ! " 

 Some of you may remember a paper that I read on " Instinct " in 

 this same month three years ago. I there tried to show that as 

 animals possess less brain matter than ourselves, and therefore less 

 reasoning powers, so they must have some compensating quality 

 for their protection and living, and this quality is instinct — the 

 lower the animal in the developmental scale, the more is the power 

 of instinct used ; the higher the animal in the scale the more are 

 the reasoning powers brought out. 



The distribution of pain is interesting, for many parts that are 

 most delicate and require most care are the most sensitive. Take, 

 for examples, the lining membrane of the windpipe and the lungs, 

 for any foreign body that lodges in these parts is quickly expelled 

 if it is by any means possible by the violent cough set up ; a grain 

 of dust does not long remain in the eye without calling earnestly 

 out for removal. 



I well remember when a boy seeing a man break stones with his 

 hands only, and wondering how it could be done. Physiology has 

 since taught me that the above proceeding need not be a very 

 harmful or painful one. The man, I noticed, had a large mass of 

 very hard skin developed at the inner border of the palm of the 

 right hand, and this mass of skin was painless, and it was by using 

 this as a hammer that he was enabled to break the stones ; and so 

 in men or women who do much manual work, the outer or non- 

 sensitive portion of the skin of the palm and fingers becomes 

 thickened, thus protecting the soft sensitive parts underneath ; in 

 labourers who use nearly the whole of the anterior surface of the 

 hand, there is a general thickening ; in rowers, only those portions 

 of skin which come in contact closely with the oar would be 

 thickened, and again in the harpist's hand, the tips of the fingers 

 are only affected. In this latter case the sensitiveness of the 

 thickened fingers would be diminished if not lost. 



The skin forms an entire covering for the body, and one of its 

 uses is to prevent us from being over sensitive — I mean to pain. 

 Those parts which are most covered — providing that there are a 

 sufficient number of nerve terminations and these be of the neces- 

 sary kind — are the most sensitive ; thus we find the tips of our 

 fingers, especially the forefinger, and tip of our tongue are amongst 

 the most sensative parts of our body, and are used frequently when 

 delicacy of touch is required. Pain acts the part of true Conser- 

 vatism in many things in life. When the laws of health are un- 



