orms, that to live
is still not to feel; and so again of plants."[199]

How different from this is the un-theory-ridden language 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 whatever--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."[200]

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
better to call the worm a reasonable creature with Dr. Darwin than to
say with Lamarck that because worms do not appear to have that organ
which he assumes to be the sole means of causing sensation and ideas,
therefore they can neither feel nor think. Doubtless they cannot feel
and think as many sensations and thoughts as we can, but our ideas of
what they can and cannot feel must be formed through consideration of
what we see them do, and must be biassed by no theories of what they
ought to be able to feel or not feel.

Again Lamarck, shortly after an excellent passage in which he points out
that the lower animals gain by experience just as man does (and here
probably he had in his mind the passage of Buffon referred to at p. 112
of this work), nevertheless writes:--

"If the facts and considerations put forward in this volume be held
worthy of attention, it will follow necessarily that there are some
animals which have neither reason nor instinct" (I should be glad to see
one of these animals and to watch its movements), "such as those which
have no power of feeling; that there are others which have instinct but
no degree whatever of reason" (whereas from Dr. Darwin's premises it
should follow, and would doubtless b