NOVEMBER 261 



words, is it the consequence of an external and 

 superior mandate or suggestion, acting upon a 

 suitable physical receptacle ? 



1. Are animals born, and do they remain, uncon- 

 scious automata ? 



Nobody who has systematically watched the be- 

 haviour of the young of birds and other animals is 

 likely long to entertain the belief that, even if they are 

 hatched or born as unconscious automata, they con- 

 tinue so for more than a very brief period — that they 

 aie, as it were, delicate and ingenious pieces of clock- 

 work, performing with regularity those functions for 

 which they are designed and adapted, so long as they 

 are regularly wound up, i.e. fed. Experience, whereof 

 the effects are manifest in every animal sufficiently 

 highly organised for man to interpret its behaviour, 

 and which may exist in the grades of life so low as to 

 baffle human scrutiny — experience, I say, and instruc- 

 tion, whereof very few, if any, vertebrate animals are 

 insusceptible,^ are undoubtedly agents upon animal 

 behaviour predicating a mental process such as could 

 be implanted in no mere machine. To take a very 

 homely illustration : no amount of repeated battering 

 will prevent a humming-top bumping itself against 

 furniture and other obstacles when it is set spinning ; 

 but one recognises the effect of experience upon the 

 conduct of animals so low in the scale of life that it is 



^ It is a popular belief that guinea-pigs are not susceptible of 

 instruction, and evince no recognition of one human being as more 

 familiar than another. Probably this is no more than sheer assertion, 

 founded on the phlegmatic behaviour of the animal in captivity, and 

 not put to the test of experiment. 



