positing of design, can also be a function of conscious intellectual association of these nerve-centres? Now this must certainly be denied, for we have indeed seen, that the effects of reflexion are of so great importance to the organism, just because they so far surpass the performances of the conscious reflection of the brain in ease, speed, and accuracy. This is, however, precisely the character of the unconscious idea, as we have become acquainted with it in the case of instinct, and have learnt further to know it in other ways. Accordingly all that we have adduced in the case of instinct against its origination through conscious reflection holds here in a still higher degree, partly because the instantaneousness of the effect is more striking in the present case, and is in still greater contrast with the sluggishness of conscious thought in beings low down in the scale, partly because we have here to do in the case of animals especially with lower centres, whilst we only find results of conscious reflection at all worth mentioning where the cerebral functions of the higher birds and mammals come into play. If, on the other hand, we contemplate the animals whose chief centres are about on a par with the lower human nerve-centres, we observe the greatest obtuseness and stupidity (e.g., in most amphibia and fishes), in contrast to which one cannot help being struck by the wonderful accuracy and fitness with which instinctive actions are performed, ever increasing in significance and extent in proportion to the entire mental life of the animal. Here there is none of that hesitancy of discursive thought, none of that shrewd and cautious consideration, which we observe in higher animals, but the instinctive action instantly follows on the impression, whereas reflection would often cost even the human brain a considerable time, and, when the action is inappropriate, as may well happen in sense-illusions in the conscious perception of causes, the pernicious error is embraced with equal certainty. We are compelled to designate this attribute of the unconscious idea, in contrast

to discursive thinking, an immediate intellectual intuition, and wherever we meet with the (not relatively to this or that centre, but absolutely) unconscious idea, we shall find this to be its characteristic.

This comparison with instinct will decidedly protect us, then, from regarding the immanent fitness of reflex movements as produced by conscious thought. The psychical autopsy of those reflex movements whose central organ is the brain entirely agrees with this; the first and last term. of the psychical process, the perception of the stimulus, and the will to move fall within the consciousness of the organ, but not the uniting middle terms, which must contain the idea of design. The only mode of apprehending the matter, which is possible after our examination, is then this: that the reflex movements are the instinctive actions of the subordinate nerve-centres, i.e., absolutely unconscious presentations, which embody the will of the reflex action (conscious for the particular centre, but unconscious for the brain), in consequence of the perception of the stimulus. In addition. to this perception in the reflecting centre, the stimulus can, by conduction, also be felt in the brain; but there is then a second perception, which has nothing to do with the reflex movement and its occurrence. Instincts and reflex actions are also alike in this, that they exhibit essentially similar reactions in the individuals of the same animal species with similar stimuli and motives. This circumstance has given strength to the opinion that a dead mechanism is present instead of unconscious mental activity and immanent adaptation; but this circumstance as an objection to our view is invalidated by the consideration, that it is capable of an easy explanation in the manner indicated at the close of the chapter on Instinct.

VI.

THE UNCONSCIOUS IN THE REPARATIVE POWER OF NATURE.

WHEN the nest of the bird, the web of the spider, the cocoon of the caterpillar, the shell of the snail are injured,— when the bird is stripped of a portion of its feathery robe,— the sufferers repair the loss which may imperil or impede their future existence. We have already seen that some of these phenomena must be ascribed to instinct, and can we fail to perceive the striking analogy of the other cases? We have seen that there is an unconscious idea of purpose, which, united with Will, dictates the conscious willing of the means to attain it; and are we to doubt that we have to do with the same thing, when the sphere of influence is no longer external, but the body itself, since we are not able to draw the line where the body proper begins and ends, as in the cocoon of the caterpillar, the shell of the snail, the feather-garment of the bird, or between excretion and secretion? If we deprive the polype of its tentacles or the worm of its head, the creature must die for want of food; and if the animal replaces the tentacles or the head and continues to live, can anything but the unconscious idea of their indispensableness be the fundamental cause of the restoration? Let it not be replied that the difference between instinct and the vis medicatrix lies in this, that in the former case the perceiving and willing of the means are, at any rate, conscious, but in the latter case these also are unconscious. For after the discussion on the independence of the lower nerve-centres, it cannot be doubted that the willing of the means may very well somehow and

somewhere reach the stage of consciousness in the lower nerve-centres, e.g., the small ganglionic cells, from which the sympathetic nerve-fibres which regulate nutrition arise, even if the chief centre of the animal knows nothing at all about it. On the other hand, no one will confidently decide, whether and how far in the lower animals in the case of instinct even the willing of the means is a conscious act.

Let us now look a little closer at the effects of the vis medicatrix. In the case of the Hydræ every part of the mass is replaced, so that a new animal is formed out of each piece, whether the division be transverse or longitudinal, or the creature be even cut into shreds. Among the Planariæ every segment, if it only amounts to one-tenth or one-eighth of the whole body, becomes a fresh animal. Among the Annelids or worms restoration follows only after transverse section, when head or tail is always regenerated. In some cases the animal may be cut into pieces, and yet each single piece develops into a perfect example of its kind. It seems here clear enough that if, after any one of these indefinitely numerous sections, the separated part always furnishes a specimen manifesting the typical idea of its kind, this effect cannot be due to a dead causality, but the type-form must be present in each piece of the animal. But an IDEA can only exist either realiter in its external manifestation as realised idea, or idealiter so far as it takes the form of mental picture, and in and through. the presentative act. Hence every fragment of the animal must have the unconscious image of the type according to which it accomplishes this regeneration; just as the bee before the construction of its first cell, and without ever having seen the like, carries in itself the unconscious representation of the hexagonal cell, accurate to half an angular minute, or as every bird must unconsciously have an idea of the form of the nest and mode of song characteristic of its species, before it has had any experience of the same. And observing the process of regeneration, e.g., of

a divided earthworm, a white bud may be seen sprouting at the cut part, which gradually becomes larger, then acquires narrow, closely packed rings, expanding on all sides, and contains prolongations of the digestive canal, the vascular system, and the ganglionic cord. It requires a strong faith to suppose that the nature of the exudation at the wounded part and the vicinity of the corresponding organs are sufficient to bring about a further growth of the animal. But when one sees how from two similar cut surfaces, separated by several rings, there is formed on the one side the head with its special organs, on the other the tail with its organs, and with organs too which have nothing at all analogous in the remaining portion of the trunk, the assumption of a dead causality, of a material mechanism without an ideal factor, becomes a sheer impossibility.

In addition to this there are various secondary circumstances, which most clearly prove that the idea of what must be executed in the special case to realise the type is the originally determining element in these events. If the animal is not full-grown, and a part of it be violently removed, the regenerated part does not correspond to the former state of the animal, but is constituted as such part would have been had the normal process of development never been interrupted. This may be seen if the leg of a young salamander or the tail of a tadpole be cut off. Somewhat similar is the case of the horns of the stag, which are annually renewed as long as the youthful vigour of the animal remains; but when the development of the organism has reached its highest point and the vigour declines, the last pair of horns either remains till death, or the pair annually reproduced becomes in extreme age shorter and simpler.

Further, the force directed to this restoration of a part is greater the more important such part is for the continued existence of the animal: thus, e.g., according to Spallanzani, worms regenerate their heads before their tails, and in

VOL. I.

K