closes, and proceeds to weep copiously, while still remaining tenaciously, much too tenaciously, shut. Indeed, I have considerable trouble in opening the eye enough to get the insect out. Here the collision of the insect starts motion in the nerves that convey their wave of it to specialized ganglia, from which it wakes other ganglia that send word down to the eyelid to close. And the stupid eyelid obeys its immediate message to my great annoyance. Now this seems a perfectly clear case of machinery, one that works inevitably and certainly. If I can manage to induce another gnat to repeat the thoughtlessness of his predecessor, the performance of my eye will be also perfectly reproduced. I recognize this action for a bit of machinery so thoroughly that I do not identify myself with it. On the contrary, I am annoyed at the stupidity of the eye in persisting so obstinately to stay closed when, if it would but open, I could soon get the insect out. In like manner, instinct and impulse, in their turn, start trains of automatic action. Indeed, all unconscious cerebration can be thus explained on general mechanical laws. In similarly explaining other brain processes, the difficulty comes in with consciousness.
