experience, you say, enters into the mechanism? Yes; but it cannot be made to enter into the mechanism of an automaton, because however complex that mechanism may be, and however capable of variety of action, it is constructed solely for definite actions on calculated lines: all its readjustments must have been foreseen, it is incapable of adjusting itself to unforeseen circumstances. Hence every interruption in the prearranged order either throws it out of gear, or brings it to a standstill. It is regulated, not self-regulating. The organism, on the contrary conspicuously so in its more complex forms—is variable, self-regulating, incalculable. It has selective adaptation (p. 221) responding readily and efficiently to novel and unforeseen circumstances; acquiring new modes of combination and reaction. An automaton that will learn by experience, and adapt itself to conditions not calculated for in its construction, has yet to be made; till it is made, we must deny that organisms are machines. Automatism in the organism implies Memory and Perception. A sudden contact—a sudden noise-a vague form seen in the twilight will excite the mechanism according to its organized experiences. We start automatically, before we automatically interpret the cause; we start first, and then ask, What is that? But we do not always start at sounds or sights which have no association with previous experiences. The child and the man both see the falling glass, but the child does not automatically stretch out a hand to save the glass. Having once learned the action of swimming or billiard-playing, we automatically execute these; without consciously remembering the rules, we unconsciously obey them; each feeling as it rises is linked on to another, each muscle is combined with others in a remembered synthesis.

76. Kempelen's chess-player surprised the public, but every instructed physiologist present knew that in some

way or other its movements were directed by a human mind; simply because no machine could possibly have responded to the unforeseen fluctuations of the human. mind opposed to it. Even the mind of a dog or a savage would be incompetent to pass beyond the range of its previous experiences, incompetent to seize the significance of an adversary's moves on the chessboard. Now just as we conclude that mental agency is essential to a game of chess, so we conclude that Sensibility is essential to the fluctuating responses of an organism under unforeseen circumstances. We can conceive an automaton dog that would bark at the presence of a beggar; but not of an automaton dog that would bark one day at the beggar and the next day wag his tail, remembering the food and patting that beggar had bestowed. Since all we know of machines forbids the idea of their being capable of adjusting their actions to new circumstances, or of evoking through experience new powers of combination, we conclude that wherever this capability of adaptation is present there is an agency in operation which does not belong to the class of mechanical agencies. Goltz has shown that a frog deprived of its brain manifests so much of vision as enables it to avoid obstacles - leaping to the right or to the left of a book placed in its path. This Professor Huxley regards as purely mechanical:- "Although the frog appears to have no sensation of light, visible objects act upon the motor mechanism of its body." Should we not rather conclude that if the frog had no sensation, no such effect would follow? because although a machine might be constructed to respond to variations of light and shadows, none could be constructed (without Sensibility) to respond to the fluctuating conditions as an organism responds. Were the reflex actions of the organism purely

DESCARTES compares the animal mechanism to that of the grottos and fountains at Versailles, the nerves to the water-tubes :-"Les objets

mechanicali. e. involving none of those fluctuating adjustments which characterize Sensibility-the effect. would be uniform, and proportional to the impact; but it is variable, and proportional to the static condition of the nervous centres at the moment. Exaggerate this - by strychnine, for instance- and the slightest touch on the skin will produce general convulsions. Lower it — by an anæsthetic and no reflex at all will follow a stimulus. In anæsthesia of the mucous membrane, no reflex of the eyelid, no secretion of tears, follows on the irritation of the membrane; no sneezing follows irritation of the inside of the nose; no vomiting follows irritation of the fauces.

77. The question has long ceased to be whether the organism is a mechanism. To the physiologist it is this extérieurs qui par leur seul présence, agissent contre les organes des sens, et qui par ce moyen, la déterminent à se mouvoir en plusieurs diverses façons, selon comme les parties du cerveau sont disposées, sont comme les étrangers, qui entrant dans quelques unes des grottes de ces fontaines causent euxmêmes sans y penser les mouvements qui s'y font en leur présence: car ils n'y peuvent entrer qu'en marchant sur certains carreaux tellement disposés, que s'ils approchent d'une Diane qui se baigne, ils la font cacher dans les roseaux; et s'ils passent outre pour la poursuivre, ils feront venir vers eux un Neptune qui les menacera de son trident; ou s'ils vont de quelque autre costé, ils en feront sortir un monstre marin qui leur vomira de l'eau contre la face.”— Traits de l'Homme, 1664, p. 12. Ingenious as the comparison is, it only illustrates how machines may be constructed to imitate animal actions. Diana always hides herself when a certain spot is trodden upon; and Neptune always appears when another spot is trodden upon. There is no fluctuation, no sensibility discerning differences and determining variations. Compare the following experiment: A monkey was placed on the table and a shrill whistle made close to its ear: "Immediately the ear was pricked and the animal turned with an air of intense surprise, with eyes widely opened and pupils dilated, to the direction whence the sound proceeded. On repetition of the experiment several times, though the pricking of the ear and the turning of the head and eyes constantly occurred, the look of surprise and dilatation of the pupils ceased to be manifested."- FERRIER, The Functions of the Brain, 1876, p. 171. A mechanical monkey would always have reacted in precisely the same way on each stimulus.

before all things. To the psychologist also it has of late years more and more assumed this character; because even when he postulates the existence of a spiritual entity in the organism but not of it, he still recognizes the necessity of a mechanism for the execution of the acts determined by the spirit; and when the psychologist adopts the theory of spiritual phenomena as the subjective aspect of what objectively are material phenomena, he of course regards the bodily mechanism and the mental mechanism as one and the same real.

This settled, the problem of Automatism may be thus stated Granting the animal organism to be a material mechanism, and all its actions due to the operation of that mechanism, are we to conclude that it is an automaton essentially resembling the automata we construct, the movements of which may, or may not, be accompanied by Feeling, but are in no case determined by Feeling?

Descartes says that animals are sensitive automata. Professor Huxley says that both animals and men are sensitive and conscious automata; so that misleading as the language of Descartes and Professor Huxley often is in what its terms connote, we do them great injustice if we suppose them to have overlooked the points of difference between organisms and machines which have been set forth with so much emphasis in a preceding chapter; and the reader is requested to understand that without pretending to say how much the inevitable connotation. of their language expresses their opinions, and how much. it may have only led to their being misunderstood, my criticisms are directed against this connotation and this interpretation.

CHAPTER VII.

IS FEELING AN AGENT?

78. DESCARTES having attributed all animal actions to a sensitive mechanism, and indeed all human actions to a similar mechanism, endeavored to reconcile this hypothesis with the irresistible facts of Consciousness which assured us that our actions, at least, were determined by Feeling. To this end he assumed that man had a spiritual principle over and above the sentient principle. The operation of this principle was, however, limited to Thought; the actions themselves were all performed by the automatic mechanism; so that, in strict logic, the conclusion from his premises was the same for man as for animals.

This conclusion Professor Huxley announced in his Address before the British Association, 1874*— to the great scandal of the general public, which did not understand him aright; and to the scandal also of a physiological public, which, strangely enough, failed to see that it was the legitimate expression of one of their favorite theories the celebrated Reflex Theory. Now although it is quite open to any one to reject the premises which lead to such a conclusion, if he sees greater evidence against the conclusion than for the premises, it is surely irrational to accept the premises as those of scientific induction, and yet reject the conclusion because it endangers the stability of other opinions? For my own part,

*Printed in the Fortnightly Review, November, 1874, from which all my citations are made.