LAMARCK'S PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 255 



Lamarck over and over again maintains that where 

 there is no nervous systein there can be no sensation. 

 Combating, for example, the assertion of Cabanis, that 

 to Kve is to feel, he says that " the greater number of 

 the polypi and all the infusoria, having no nervous 

 system, it must be said of them as also of worms, that 

 to live is still not to feel ; and so again of plants." * 



How different from this is the un-theory-ridden lan- 

 guage of Dr. Darwin, quoted on p. 116 of this work. 



Lamarck again writes : — 



" The very imperfect animals of the lowest classes, 

 having no nervous system, are simply irritable, have 

 nothing but certain habits, experience no sensations, 

 and never conceive ideas." 



This, in the face of the performances of the amoeba — 

 a minute jelly speck, without any special organ what- 

 ever — in making its tests, cannot be admitted. Is it 

 possible that Lamarck was in some measure misled by 

 believing Buffon to be in earnest when he advanced 

 propositions little less monstrous ? 



" But," continues Lamarck, " the less imperfect 

 animals which have a nervous system^ though they 

 have not the organ of intelligence, have instinct, habits, 

 and proclivities ; they feel sensations, and yet form no 

 ideas whatever. I venture to say that where there is 

 no organ for a faculty that faculty cannot exist." t 



Who can tell what ideas a worm does or does not 



form ? We can watch its actions, and see that they are 



such as involve what we call design and a perception of 



its own interest. Under these circumstances it seems 



* 'Phil. Zool.,' vol. i. p. 404. t Ibid. vol. ii. p. 324. 



