The Dawn of Reason | Page 4

mind came into existence. The
latter psychical manifestation had its origin in sensual perception,

which, in turn, gave rise to mental recepts and concepts.
In order fully to understand the origin of mind, it will be necessary to
investigate the senses as they are observed in the lower animals. The
first manifestation of conscious mind, which is, as I believe, conscious
determination, or, volitional effort, is directly traceable to stimuli
affecting the senses. This primal operation of conscious mind, and the
manner in which it is developed from sensational perceptions, will now
be discussed.
CHAPTER I
THE SENSES IN THE LOWER ANIMALS
I am inclined to believe that the primal, fundamental sense,--the sense
of touch,--from which all the other senses have been evolved or
developed, has been in existence almost as long as life.
It is quite probable that it is to be found in the very lowest animal
organisms; and, if our own senses were acute enough, it is more than
probable that we would be able to demonstrate its presence, beyond
peradventure, in such organisms.
The senses of taste and smell, according to Graber, Lubbock, Farre, and
many other investigators, seem to be almost as old as the sense of touch.
My own observations teach me that certain actinophryans,[5] minute,
microscopic animalcules, can differentiate between the starch spores of
algæ and grains of sand, thus showing that they possess taste, or an
analogous sense.
[5] Vide the writer, N. Y. Medical Record, August 15, 1896.
On one occasion I was examining an actinophrys (Actinophrys
Eichornii), which was engaged in feeding. It would seize a rotifer
(there were numerous Brachioni in the water) with one of its
pseudopodia, which it would then retract, until the captured Brachionus
was safely within its abdominal cavity. On the slide there were several
grains of sand, but these the actinophrys passed by without notice.

I thought, at first, that this creature's attention was directed to its prey
by the movements of the latter, but further investigation showed me
that this was not the case.
After carefully rinsing the slide, I placed some alga spores (some of
which were ruptured, thus allowing the starch grains to escape) and
some minute crystals of uric acid upon it. Whenever the actinophrys
touched a starch grain with a pseudopod, the latter was at once retracted,
carrying the starch grain with it into the abdominal cavity of the
actinophryan; the uric acid crystals were always ignored.
I conclude from this experiment, that the actinophrys, which is
exceedingly low in the scale of animal life, recognizes food by taste, or
by some sense analogous to taste.
Many species of these little animals, however, are not as intelligent as
the Eichorn actinophrys; they very frequently take in inert and useless
substances, which, after a time, they get rid of by a process the reverse
of that which they use in "swallowing." By the latter process they put
themselves on the outside of an object--in fact, they surround it; by the
former, they put the object outside by allowing it to escape through
their bodies.
The sense of sight makes its appearance in animals quite low in the
scale, therefore the reader will pardon me if, while discussing this sense,
I prove to be a bit discursive. The subject is, withal, so very interesting
that it calls for a close and minute investigation.
One of the immutable laws of nature declares that animals which are
placed in new surroundings, not fatal to life, undergo certain changes
and modifications in their anatomical and physiological structures to
meet the exigencies demanded by such a modification of surroundings.
Thus, the flounder and his congeners, the turbot, the plaice, the sole,
etc., were, centuries and centuries ago, two-sided fishes, swimming
upright, after the manner of the perch, the bass, and the salmon, with
eyes arranged one on each side of the head. From upright fishes,
swimming, probably, close to the surface of the sea, they became
dwellers on its bottom, and, in order to hide themselves more

effectually from their enemies or their prey, they acquired the habit of
swimming with one side next to the ground, and of partially or wholly
burying themselves in the mud, always, however, with one side down.
They thus became flat fishes, losing the coloring of their under surfaces,
and their eyes migrating across their foreheads and taking up positions
on the upper surfaces of their heads. Again, when animals are placed
among surroundings in which there is no need for some special organ,
this organ degenerates, and passes wholly or partially into a
rudimentary condition, or, entirely out of existence. These latter effects
of changed conditions on animals are especially noticeable in the effect
of continual darkness on the organs of sight of those creatures which,
owing to said mutations, have