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BULLETIN OF TIIE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
tion — whether by touch or otherwise — is aroused intelligence of 
it is transmitted to the brain, the central office — which informs 
the whole body of what it has just received, and thus ithe entire 
system is made conscious of the occurrence. Indeed some of the 
older naturalists made a distinction — which may yet exist — 
between sensation and consciousness, holding that while man 
and the higher animals had consciousness the lower animals were 
cognizant of sensation only. This is easily interpreted into the 
idea that consciousness is the capacity to express sensation. 
Certainly so far as an intelligent statement may be made of these 
things we can easily believe that Dr. Hay’s tree in its effort to 
get into the sunlight, vegetable though it is, shows quite as much 
intelligent consciousness as is displayed by the clam or ithe oyster 
in its environment. Probably a good deal more. 
One word more in regard to consciousness only. What is it ? 
Are we fully conscious of all of our own consciousness ? Mr. 
Mallock lately made the observation that “if we call a man’s self 
those faculties and processes which are going on in his own 
organism, he is as ignorant of the larger part of himself as he is 
ignorant of what is happening in the moon or the milky way. 
It is enough, in illustration of this, to mention the case of memory, 
in which each of us is a crowded register of things which we 
have never noticed, and of which it betrays its custody under 
rare conditions only.” The common wild rabbit or hare of this 
country changes its coat in winter, and there are some who be- 
lieve that it does so in order that by its resemblance to the snow, 
by its mimicry of nature, it will protect itself from its enemies. 
Is it conscious of toe change, does it put forth a conscious effort 
to bring this about ? Look at .that curious insect which is so like 
the branch of a tree or shrub upon which iit feeds, and which 
we are again told assumes its color and marking so that it may 
escape its enemies? Is it conscious that it is thus protected? 
Consider the lilies of the field. Do they, or did they, know 
that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like unto them? 
But I must end my questionings ? 
We get back to the fact that as observation is more close and 
more definite regarding the life upon our planet, to the atoms, 
the substance, of which the universe is composed, there seems 
