“We can scarcely conceive that a creature of such simplicity should 
possess any distinct consciousness of its needs, or that its action 
should be directed by any intention of its own.”—(ftp. 41-4.2?) 
What shall we say in a case like this ? We must either 
assert somewhat dogmatically that the simplest organisms 
cannot be the seat of animal intelligence, or we must 
admit the possibility of intelligence apart from the par 
ticular differentiation with which we are acquainted in the 
case of man. And surely that is possible. Dr. Carus 
says:— 
“ When we find that there can be respiration without lungs, that 
nutrition, growth, and secretion may exist without a circulation 
of fluids, and that generation may take place without distinct sexes, 
why should we doubt that sensitive life may exist without nerves, 
or motion without muscular fibres?”—(Kirby. Bridgewater Treatise, 
vol. z'., p. 211.) 
“ I adopt,” says Mr. H. F. Finch, “ Haeckel’s cellular psychology 
which attributes the elements of intellectual sensation and volition to 
infusoria and organic cells in general, in opposition to the older 
neural psychology, according to which psychical action begins with 
the nervous system in the scale of animal life. This latter view has 
given a longer lease of life to the old theory of instinct regarded as a 
mysterious power of nature.”—{Nature, vol. xix., p. J40.) 
“It is anthropomorphic,” says Mr. H. M. Stanley, “to suppose 
that all intelligence must be fitted with the same organs that we 
possess.”—{Mind. vol. x., p. 424.) 
There seems some reason, to my mind, in these con 
tentions ; but if there is force in them, it will be difficult to 
find a sphere of life from which intelligence is necessarily 
excluded. 
It is contended that the actions of the higher animals, 
which are performed at an age before they have become 
intelligent beings, are necessarily instinctive and non- 
intelligent, and therefore that they offer material for