1 86 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

pores at regular intervals. Another selects the minutest sand-

grains and the terminal portions of sponge spicules, and works

these up together, apparently with no cement at all, into perfect

spheres, each having a single fissured orifice." (CARPENTER'S

Mental Physiology, p. 41.)

However far, then, we may put back the beginnings of

instinct, the question as to its origin ever returns, and indeed

with increased importunity. How did the first sentient

creatures come to take and swallow their food ? How did

they first come to fecundate their ova or suitably to deposit

them ? How did they first effect such movements as might

be necessary for their respiratory processes ? Wherever

such phenomena first manifested themselves in sentient

organisms, we seem compelled therein to recognize the

manifest presence of instinct, which may be called the

faculty provided by nature for bridging over the interval

which exists between the purely vegetative functions (nutri-

tion and reproduction) and the complex activities of

sentient, animal life. It is one of the most noteworthy

of psychical powers, and its distinct and full recognition

in all its bearings will (as we shall see later on) be found

to have an important bearing on problems of Epistemology.

The psychical antecedents of science, which we have

passed in review in the present chapter, consist of a number

of intellectual perceptions of facts and of relations between

facts, which enable us to understand the existence and

nature of psychical activities which do not rise into con-

sciousness. We have also been forced somewhat to antici-

pate matters and notice some of our higher psychical acts,

such as ethical conceptions, inferences and reminiscences,

of which we are directly conscious, and which can only be

scrutinized by reflexion with the aid of intellectual memory.

We have also (as before said) noted, as occurring in our-

selves, various acts of mere sense-perception, sensuous

pores at regular intervals. Another selects the minutest sand-

grains and the terminal portions of sponge spicules, and works

these up together, apparently with no cement at all, into perfect

spheres, each having a single fissured orifice." (CARPENTER'S

Mental Physiology, p. 41.)

However far, then, we may put back the beginnings of

instinct, the question as to its origin ever returns, and indeed

with increased importunity. How did the first sentient

creatures come to take and swallow their food ? How did

they first come to fecundate their ova or suitably to deposit

them ? How did they first effect such movements as might

be necessary for their respiratory processes ? Wherever

such phenomena first manifested themselves in sentient

organisms, we seem compelled therein to recognize the

manifest presence of instinct, which may be called the

faculty provided by nature for bridging over the interval

which exists between the purely vegetative functions (nutri-

tion and reproduction) and the complex activities of

sentient, animal life. It is one of the most noteworthy

of psychical powers, and its distinct and full recognition

in all its bearings will (as we shall see later on) be found

to have an important bearing on problems of Epistemology.

The psychical antecedents of science, which we have

passed in review in the present chapter, consist of a number

of intellectual perceptions of facts and of relations between

facts, which enable us to understand the existence and

nature of psychical activities which do not rise into con-

sciousness. We have also been forced somewhat to antici-

pate matters and notice some of our higher psychical acts,

such as ethical conceptions, inferences and reminiscences,

of which we are directly conscious, and which can only be

scrutinized by reflexion with the aid of intellectual memory.

We have also (as before said) noted, as occurring in our-

selves, various acts of mere sense-perception, sensuous