(Ebook) Sicilian Warfare by Ilya Smirin ISBN

9781784831134, 1784831131 download

https://ebooknice.com/product/sicilian-warfare-53475758

Explore and download more ebooks at ebooknice.com

We have selected some products that you may be interested in
Click the link to download now or visit ebooknice.com
for more options!.

(Ebook) Biota Grow 2C gather 2C cook by Loucas, Jason; Viles,

James ISBN 9781459699816, 9781743365571, 9781925268492,
1459699815, 1743365578, 1925268497

https://ebooknice.com/product/biota-grow-2c-gather-2c-cook-6661374

(Ebook) How to Draw Comics by Ilya by Ilya ISBN 9781613739037,

1613739036

https://ebooknice.com/product/how-to-draw-comics-by-ilya-48681814

(Ebook) Matematik 5000+ Kurs 2c Lärobok by Lena Alfredsson, Hans

Heikne, Sanna Bodemyr ISBN 9789127456600, 9127456609

https://ebooknice.com/product/matematik-5000-kurs-2c-larobok-23848312

(Ebook) Vagabond, Vol. 29 (29) by Inoue, Takehiko ISBN

9781421531489, 1421531488

https://ebooknice.com/product/vagabond-vol-29-29-37511002
(Ebook) SAT II Success MATH 1C and 2C 2002 (Peterson's SAT II
Success) by Peterson's ISBN 9780768906677, 0768906679

https://ebooknice.com/product/sat-ii-success-math-1c-and-2c-2002-peterson-
s-sat-ii-success-1722018

(Ebook) The Sharpest Sicilian: A Black Repertoire with 1.e4 c5

2. Nf3 d6 (The Sharpest Sicilian) by Kiril Georgiev, Atanas
Kolev ISBN 9548782561

https://ebooknice.com/product/the-sharpest-sicilian-a-black-repertoire-
with-1-e4-c5-2-nf3-d6-the-sharpest-sicilian-2368530

(Ebook) Sicilian Kan by John Emms ISBN 9781857443028, 1857443020

https://ebooknice.com/product/sicilian-kan-2495960

(Ebook) On Art by Ilya Kabakov ISBN 9780226384566, 022638456X

https://ebooknice.com/product/on-art-7288740

(Ebook) The Sicilian Sozin by Mikhail Golubev ISBN

9781901983388, 1901983382

https://ebooknice.com/product/the-sicilian-sozin-1317984
Contents

Title Page
Key to Symbols used 4
Preface 5

1 Attacking the King in the Centre 7

2 The Killer Knight on f5 33
3 Pawn Breaks 59
4 Opposite-side Castling 101
5 The Exchange Sacrifice 131
6 Positional Elements 167
7 Hedgehog Strategy 207
8 Endgames 241
9 Imagination 269
10 Typical Attacks 299

Game Index 324

Name Index 331
Sicilian Warfare
By
Ilya Smirin
 Quality Chess
http://www.qualitychess.co.uk

First edition 2020 by Quality Chess UK Ltd

Copyright © 2020 Ilya Smirin
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
electrostatic, magnetic tape, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without prior permission of the publisher.
Paperback ISBN 978-1-78483-113-4
Hardcover ISBN 978-1-78483-114-1
All sales or enquiries should be directed to Quality Chess UK Ltd,
Suite 247, Central Chambers, 11 Bothwell Street,
Glasgow G2 6LY, United Kingdom
Phone +44 141 204 2073
e-mail: info@qualitychess.co.uk
website: www.qualitychess.co.uk
Distributed in North and South America by National Book Network
Distributed in Rest of the World by Quality Chess UK Ltd through
Sunrise Handicrafts, ul. Szarugi 59, 21-002 Marysin, Poland
Typeset by Jacob Aagaard
Proofreading by John Shaw
Edited by Renier Castellanos and Colin McNab
Cover design by Jason Mathis
Photos of chess positions by Kallia Kleisarchaki
 Key to symbols used
² White is slightly better
³ Black is slightly better
± White is better
µ Black is better
+– White has a decisive advantage
–+ Black has a decisive advantage
= equality
© with compensation
„ with counterplay
ƒ with an initiative
÷ unclear
? a weak move
?? a blunder
! a good move
!! an excellent move
!? a move worth considering
?! a move of doubtful value
™ only move
# mate
Preface
The two most exciting openings in chess are beyond doubt the King’s
Indian Defence and the Sicilian Defence. Not everyone feels comfortable
playing these openings, but from the viewpoint of chess fans, these two
fighting systems lead to the most spectacular and interesting games.
The Sicilian Defence is truly the choice of champions. Although Karpov
only played it rarely, it has been a cornerstone in the Black repertoires of
most of the world champions in my lifetime. Kasparov relied heavily upon
it and played little else for most of his career. Kramnik was the great
champion of the Sveshnikov Variation in the Sicilian Defence, until he
came up with the Berlin Defence to frustrate Kasparov and claim the crown.
Later on, he turned to the Najdorf, though this time without so much
success. Topalov is a natural Sicilian player, as is Anand, although 1...e5
has also been a standard for these two champions. Magnus Carlsen is a truly
versatile player, who played the Najdorf and the Dragon on his way up,
while he recently returned to the Sveshnikov Variation against Caruana in
the 2018 title defence – an opening he had not played since his junior days.
There are many ways to meet 1.e4, but all are essentially inferior in some
way to two principal options – the Sicilian Defence and the
Petroff/Classical Ruy Lopez/Berlin approach. While the latter may try to
prevent a fight, the Sicilian is the archetypical fighting opening.
In my previous book, King’s Indian Warfare, I looked at common themes in
the KID and how they had occurred in my own games. The book was well
received by reviewers and a segment of the chess public, so I saw no reason
to change the format when it came to dealing with my other favourite
opening.
Sicilian Warfare is not a theoretical work, but a book about what comes
after memorization of opening moves. This is a feeling for the positional
and especially the dynamic possibilities that arise from this extremely
popular, double-edged opening. The structure of the book is simple. We
look at ten different topics; mainly dynamic in nature, but with some
exceptions. In each chapter I will give a brief overview of the theme with
one or more clear-cut examples. Then I will present the themes in a
complex setting in my own games.
There is one major difference between the two books, which is that I play
1.e4 with White and thus obtain the Sicilian with both colours. This gave
me a greater number of games to choose from. Hopefully, you will be
happy with the selection I have made.
At the start of each chapter you will find eight positions that will arise later
in the chapter. These are positions I have selected from the chapter that
work well as exercises. They are not necessarily tactical in nature, but
simply snapshots from the games in the chapter, at points where they are
most interesting.
I would like to thank IM Renier Castellanos and GM Colin McNab for
editing the book and adding insights to it that would otherwise have gone
unnoticed.
Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to the memory of my friend and
colleague, Moldavian Grandmaster Dmitry Svetushkin, who tragically
passed away on 4th September 2020.
Ilya Smirin
Kfar Sava, September 2020
Chapter 1

Attacking the King in the Centre

Test yourself against the book

In this section you get a chance to train your Sicilian muscles and
measure yourself against the variations in the book. Take as long as you like
answering these questions. Some would want to make intuitive decisions,
others to practise calculation. Both have their merits.
White to initiate an attack (see page 10)

Black is about to castle. What can White do?

(see page 11)
How should White continue the attack?
(see page 18)

Add some energy to your play!

(see page 19)
What is the typical way to exploit the lead in development?
(see page 22)

The white king looks exposed. How can Black exploit it?
(see page 26)
Which is the best square for the c1-bishop?
(see page 28)

An obvious move?
(see page 30)
One of the most important elements in the Sicilian Defence is the safety of
the kings. It is quite a typical scenario to find the black king mated in the
centre of the board, or at least for it to come under heavy attack. However,
as we shall see in this chapter, the white king is not immune from risk
either. Of course it always requires a touch of collaboration from the
opponent to create such conditions, but this is something that happens not
uncommonly.

Sicilian positions are rich in ideas, and it’s always tricky to find the right
rhythm and balance between dynamic play and safety. Frequently Black’s
king will remain safe because his pieces are active, generating enough
counterplay. However, at other times it ends badly. Mastering the art of the
Sicilian is not easy and even the greatest experts have once or twice
suffered disastrous experiences. There are no risk-free positions in the
Sicilian – one must remain vigilant to the sacrifices on the b5-, d5- and f5-
squares, as well as staying alert to the central pawn breaks. But without
further words, let’s see some attacks in action.

Leinier Dominguez Perez – Aleksander Wojtkiewicz Merida 2001

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.g4 h6 8.f4 b5
8...e5 9.Nf5 h5! is the most principled way to play.

9.Bg2 Bb7
10.g5!
White is out for blood. Of course, no one wants to play a move like
10.a3 unless forced to.

10...hxg5 11.fxg5 b4
After 11...Nh5 White continues 12.g6 Qh4† and now 13.Kd2! was
favourable for White in Nowak – Thompson, email 2005.

12.Na4 Nxe4?
12...Nh5 is a somewhat better way to defend, but 13.0-0 Nd7 14.g6!
Nhf6 15.c3! still gave White a promising attack in Ivanchuk – Topalov, Las
Palmas 1996.
13.Qg4! d5 14.Bxe4 dxe4 15.0-0-0+– Only 15 moves have been played,
but Black’s position is already desperate.

15...Nd7
16.Nxe6! Qc8
16...fxe6 17.Qxe6† Qe7 18.Qg6† is hopeless for Black.

17.Nb6!
Not the only winning move but rather an effective one.
17...Nxb6 18.Rd8† Qxd8 19.Nxd8 Rxd8 20.Bxb6

After just 20 moves Black could already resign. The cost of an error is
too high in these positions! Wojtkiewicz tries to put up some resistance, but
there is nothing that can save Black.

20...Rd7 21.Qf5 Bd6 22.Rd1 Rh4 23.Be3 g6 24.Qf6 Be7 25.Qe5 Rxd1†
26.Kxd1 Kd7 27.Qb8 Bd5 28.Qg3 Rh5 29.Qe5 Be6 30.Bf4 f6 31.Qc7†
Ke8 32.Bd6 Bd8 33.Qc6† Kf7
34.Qa8 Rh8 35.Bc7 Bg4† 36.Ke1 Bxc7 37.Qxh8 Be5 38.Qh7† Ke6
39.Qxg6 Bf3 40.Qg8† Kf5 41.g6
1–0

J. Arizmendi Martinez – F. Vallejo Pons Albox (rapid) 2003

Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
 Insects, Mollusca, Birds.
The grouping of animals by structural characters, and by affinities which
are assumed, though based on almost undeniable evidence, whether
into species, families, classes, phyla or sub-phyla, has its apotheosis in
Mollusca and Insects. As to the second of these immense groups it has
always seemed strange that their colourings and structural characters
should have received such intensive study from Weismann to the
exclusion of Mollusca, when he set out to prove his stupendous
negative, and still more that of Vertebrates, among which his chief
difficulty and desired triumph would seem to have lain. Mollusca though
invertebrate are held by many to be in the line of ancestry of the
highest forms of life, and at any rate insects are not. They are most
fruitful fields indeed in which Nature has been able to show what she
could do by her stern selective powers, but, from the point of view of
descent with modifica­tion, may be fairly compared to a review of an
army in time of peace, or the Kriegspiel of a German military staff. He
who concerns himself with the fundamental difficulties of the problems
at issue in evolution must make his notes of what experts tell him of
such groups as those of Insects, Mollusca and Birds, and pass on to the
higher forms in which on the one hand function becomes the
predominant partner, and on the other individual experience becomes
more and more important. He feels indeed at liberty to wish the
entomologist and ornithologist all success, and to leave him at peace, in
his siding, to pursue his delightful and interminable studies far from the
dust and din of controversy.

Insectivores.
The critical territory of vertebrate, and still more of Mammalian forms,
in which the genealogist pictures the five main groups of Insectivores,
looking about them, if one may so speak, in the world around and
pondering which of many paths they shall pursue, resembles certain
centres that may be seen in towns where three, four, five, or seven
different roads are open to the traveller, each with its incalculable
effects on his ultimate career. If one may change here the metaphor it
may be said that the Insectivores are the watershed of the Five Rivers
of higher life. However much the wayfaring insect-feeders have
diverged from this broad centre in structure, and however much the
laws of genetics have widened this divergence, the facts of function
stare one in the face when such descriptions of three of the four orders
outside the Primate stock are pondered—Flesh-feeders, Herbivorous
animals, Burrowers and Gnawers. These time-honoured names
appealed strongly to older zoologists, and in them is implicit a large
body of evidence for initiative in their evolution by pioneering work on
the part of their ancestors. Though in these days Prototheria include
Monotremes, One-vent animals, Metatheria, Marsupials or pouched
animals, and Eutheria Insect-feeders, and though Mammals derive their
indispensable name from the function by which they feed their young,
the most severe of systematists cannot clear his mind from the old
leaven of function in all these terms. They imply momentous
potentialities prior to new structures, and the modern fails to ban
entirely such functional names. I believe there is here no juggling with
names and words on my part, but a stone in the founda­tion of the
unambitious building which I am seeking to rear. It is ultimately
connected with a directive power as well as the formation of sensori-
motor arcs in the central nervous system.
Is it possible or probable that the factors which led some group to the
water alone, some to a life in water and on land at different parts of
their lives, some to a crawling life on land and partly in water, some to
the air and trees, some to nocturnal, some to hybernating, some to
burrowing life, some to a diet of flesh, some to one of plants, some to
the trees alone, some to the trees and land, some to the land by night
and trees by day, and some for ever and wholly to the land—is it
probable that any process of selection of suited structures with
countless ages of trial and error, could have determined these changes
of habit and habitat? At least one may claim that the balance of
probabilities is heavily against that view, and that the forging of reflex-
arcs, with all it means to the career of an individual, affords a more
intelligible hypothesis, and that this is strongly supported by modern
discoveries and doctrines arising from the work of physiologists, as will
appear later.

The Place of the Nervous System in Evolution.

The constitu­tion of the nervous system is conditioned by conduc­tion, its
fundamental and primary function. Its processes consist in the
transmission of impulses from receptive fields to effective reactions
through devious paths in a region which, even to-day, is a jungle, with
many further secrets for physiology to reveal. From this point of view
the nervous system may be looked at as a clearing-house and
storehouse of impulses on their way in, on their way through, and on
their way out. If so, the making of new reflex-arcs is a process which
has gone on simultaneously with the formation of receptors in the skin,
the higher sense-organs and such deep structures as muscles, and that
of effectors of infinite variety—and these are called conveniently
adaptations. When we hear from Professor Sherrington that the afferent
fibres with their private paths which enter the spinal cord outnumber
three times those which leave it, and that those of the cranial nerves
should be added, so that the afferent fibres may be reckoned as five
times more numerous than the efferent, we get a vivid idea of the
fundamental importance of the formation and compounding of reflex-
arcs into systems. Without that the most sensitive receptors and the
widest range of structures and organs, small and great, would be as
nothing and things of naught.
A neurone is the anatomical, as the reflex-arc is the functional unit of a
central nervous system. Just as it is profitless to consider apart the
engines and body of a motor car, as working machine, so is it to picture
neurones and reflex-arcs separately in the living nervous system except
for the purpose of an ideal construc­tion. In common with the organs
and structures of higher animals they have to pass, as historical
structures, through the stages of initia­tion, repeti­tion of rudimentary
function, and selection by trial and error, till the “canalizing force of
habit” issues in rudimentary and increasingly efficient effectors. It is in
this final stage where the triumphs of selection have been won, and
where their undeniable value and interest has led some exponents of
the distributional laws of genetics to disregard, or accept as data, the
early and formative stages. Theirs is a mental state which resembles
that of Darwin, who, for once in a moment of haste, declared the
question of the origin of life to be rubbish.
In the foregoing considera­tion of the formation of receptors of the skin
it was assumed that certain common stimuli of the environment
hammer out for themselves paths in the nerve-fibrils of the skin and by
ceaseless repeti­tion lay down not only the receptor, which may be called
the terminus a quo, but also the afferent fibres which ultimately find
their way into the grey matter of the cord and brain. That this is the
initial stage of the construc­tion of the higher nervous system can hardly
be denied. But it carries the problem of the synthesis of the organism
but a little way unless it be coincident with the construc­tion of new
reflex-arcs and their co-ordina­tion into systems. Till this stage be
reached in a rudimentary form the most cunning and exact adaptations
and structures, or, as they may be broadly called effectors, will not
advance the efficiency of the organism in the smallest degree. If the
receptor be the terminus a quo the effector is the terminus ad quem.
This is so obvious that it may be waved aside as a truism not worth the
notice of a zoologist concerned with the major problems of biology. It
may seem to challenge in a highly speculative region and manner the
labours of the biometrician and Mendelian, but, if fairly met it no more
encroaches on their territory than do the labours of the engineers who
invented the first and crudest chassis of a motor car upon the elaborate
and brilliant ingenuity, taste and skill of the coachbuilders who turn out
the “body” of a sumptuous Rolls-Royce of 1920. But the latter would
never have “arrived” if the former had not made his slow and arduous
trials and errors and final success. So here, as in many other subjects, a
truism has its use. If the biometrician and Mendelian will only abstain
from erecting notice-boards to proclaim “No thoroughfare here,” we
shall not be put down as trespassers or poachers on their ground and
may range at large in certain fields of specula­tion.

Some Neural Phenomena.

Among numerous phenomena of nervous reactions discovered by the
research of physiologists certain have a close bearing on the formation
of receptors, afferent fibres and reflex-arcs, especially those of Delay,
Summation, Fatigue, Block or Resistance, Localiza­tion, Facilita­tion and
Inhibi­tion.

Facilitation.
But of all these important reactions in nervous tissues none bears so
closely on the problem of the formation of reflex-arcs as that of Facilita­‐
tion. This is equivalent to the Law of Neural Habit of the physiological
psychologist, and is bound up with the highly important Law of Forward
Direction, which Professor Starling says might as well be spoken of as
the Irreciprocal conduc­tion of nerve-arcs. The Law of Forward Direction
of sensori-motor arcs is too well known to need here any descrip­tion.
But when this law is taken into account the phenomenon of Facilita­tion
is seen to throw a strong light upon the earliest and rudimentary
formation of specialized nerve-fibres, reflex-arcs and Final Common
Paths leading to the effector glands or muscles. Facilita­tion is described
shortly by Professor Starling as follows. If the passage of a nervous
impulse across a synapse or series of synapses in the central nervous
system be too often repeated, fatigue is produced, and there is an
increase of the block at each synapse. If, however the stimulus be not
excessive and the impulse not too frequently evoked, the effect of a
passage of an impulse once is to diminish the resistance, so that a
second applica­tion of the stimulus provokes the reaction more easily,
and he adds that the result of summation of stimuli is in fact in the
direction of removal of block. When an impulse has passed once
through a certain set of neurones to the exclusion of others it will tend,
other things being equal, to take the same course on a future occasion,
and each time it traverses this path the resistance in the path will be
smaller. Education then is the laying down of nerve-channels in the
central nervous system, while still plastic, by this process of Facilita­tion
along fit paths, combined with inhibi­tion (by pain) in the other unfit
paths. He makes the important statement that Facilita­tion is of great
interest in connec­tion with the development of “long paths” in the
central nervous system and, more especially with the acquirement of
new reactions by the higher animals. (Italics not in the original).

Raw Materials of the Central Nervous System.

The raw materials of higher central nervous systems are furnished even
in lowly Vertebrates by the neurones and their processes, and the
pathways into the grey matter by the “canalizing force of habit” in the
receptors and afferent fibres. Facilita­tion, discovered in higher
Vertebrates, such as dogs and cats, throws backwards a light on the
earliest struggles towards success and integra­tion among phyla, sub-
phyla and smaller groups, and here again the well-known may lead to
the less-known. We may then frame a legitimate hypothesis, or at least
an ideal construc­tion of trials and errors and success, if those of lower
levels were ever to be introduced to the career of progress and
achievement. But to make good this claim it is necessary that it be
based on the important doctrine taught by Hughlings Jackson of the
three (or more) levels of sensori-motor arcs—those of the spinal or
lowest, of the sensory or intermediate, and those of the third or highest
level, in which the associa­tion-areas of the Primate brain are at once
the means and the title to his primacy, or headship of the sentient
world. The light of this doctrine guides the mind backwards to the frog-
stage of animal evolution with its highly organized congenital system of
arcs of the spinal level, so efficient for its life that, even when the brain
is removed, the frog can execute under certain stimuli a purposeful
complicated movement such as that of trying to wipe away with its foot
an irritant drop of acid applied to its head or back; or, still more, if
touched lightly between the scapulæ, will “lower its head at the first
touch, and again more so at a second, and at a third will, besides
lowering the head, draw the front half of its trunk slightly backwards; at
a fourth the same movement with stronger retrac­tion; at a fifth give an
ineffectual sweep with its hind or fore-foot; at a sixth a stronger sweep;
at a seventh a feeble jump; at an eighth a free jump, and so on.”
Probably such an animal as the frog has all its reflexes congenitally
organized, whereas a dog, reaching the sensory level, has added
countless reflex-arcs to those inherited from its early ancestors of the
Insectivores which had long emerged from the spinal level, retaining its
old, perfecting its new inheritance, and eliminating the unfit. Perhaps a
faint picture of this long process may be afforded by watching an
experienced mountain guide ascending an ice-slope with the aid of ice-
axe, hand and foot.

Integration of Raw Materials.

Every group of animals in the higher ranks has its own entailed property
of innate reflexes, for example, the reflexes which subserve the reflex
functions of the cord: those of locomo­tion, muscular and vascular tone,
micturi­tion, defæca­tion, impregna­tion and parturi­tion. These exist in an
animal of the spinal level whether or not it remains purely aquatic,
partly aquatic, partly terrestrial, arboreal or terrestrial. As the
progressive groups ascend the ladder of life they add to this inalienable
heritage, gained we need not here ask how, fresh reflex-arcs by
response to new initial stimuli, forging them by the incident of use. So,
the original acquirements in the past levels serve as starting points for
raising the degree of their nervous integra­tion with growing control over
their environments. The long story from the simple central nervous
system of a fish, with a few or no associa­tion-areas, to that of man with
his extensive frontal, parietal, parieto-occipital associa­tion-areas, could
never be deciphered, even with the light of the laws of genetics turned
on full, without a protracted process of construc­tion of fresh arcs. A
common illustra­tion of such a series of changes and results may be
seen in the building of a house. Bricks, founda­tion-stones, walls and a
roof may serve some of the elementary requirements of a house and
much less than these were of use to early man for his shelter. Without
them we cannot call any structure a modern house; but also without
floors, staircases, windows, chimneys, division into rooms, some degree
of decora­tion by paint or paper, and a supply of water, we should refuse
in these days the name of house to that rough structure, apart from
beauty of design, decora­tion, within and without, and some addition of
modern appliances of comfort and convenience. In the history of house-
building the stages of supply of raw materials, adapta­tion to needs
guided by selection, initia­tion, trial and error have their counterpart in
the construc­tion of higher animals.

Evidence.
It will be asked what evidence there is for the view here put forward
that such is the order and method of the construc­tion of the central
nervous system. There are two classes of evidence. The first direct, and
the second indirect and resting on inference. The well-known leads to
the less-known and inferred. Direct evidence of the founda­tion of new
reflex-arcs and their organiza­tion is of course small. The conditions,
such as the duration of human life, preclude any extensive formation
under experiment of new reflex-arcs, but enough is known to enable
one to follow the backward way with some confidence. As to the
inheritance of these, the evidence rests on opinion and tremendous
probability, but as the only problem with which I am concerned here is
that of initiative I think it better to leave the matter of transmission to a
dispassionate considera­tion of the probability of its occurrence.

Direct Evidence.
The prolonged researches of over twelve years of Professor Pawlow and
his colleagues on dogs afford a body of evidence as to the possibility of
producing new reflexes in the life of an individual which have never
been questioned. In 1913 at Groningen, before the International
Congress of Physiologists, he gave a brief account of this work. His
previous work on the digestive glands carried on by delicate operations
in which the œsophagus was diverted from the stomach and made to
open externally, and in which a portion of the stomach was diverted
from the rest and a new “small stomach” was formed, gave him the
opportunity of immensely important insight into the factors governing
the work of the various glands of the stomach. The work of others
showed similar results in the pancreas. I only refer to these because
they lead up to the special artificial results with new reflexes which he
described in 1913. He states that the nervous system besides the
primitive function of reproducing innate reflexes, possesses another
prime function-namely the formation of new reflexes; and that the living
thing is enabled to respond, by definite and suitable activities to
agencies to which it was formerly indifferent. His experiments on the
formation of “conditional reflexes,” as he calls them rather than
“acquired” as opposed to “innate,” are grouped around the feeding of
the animal and mainly deal with the salivary glands, because they are in
direct connec­tion with the external world and their reactions are simply
and easily observed. An indifferent stimulus is chosen for the reflexes
which it is desired to build up, and this is applied at the same time as
food or acid is introduced in the mouth. After a few sittings it is found
that this indifferent stimulus alone is now capable of calling forth a
secretion of saliva. “The conditional reflex has been formed; the
formerly indifferent stimulus has now found a path to the requisite part
of the central nervous system. The reflex-arc has now a different
afferent neurone.” He gives a good example of this in the result of the
applica­tion of painful stimuli by a strong electrical current to the skin,
systematically accompanying each feeding of the animal. He finds that
the strongest electrical stimuli applied to the skin give rise merely to the
“feeding reaction,” that is, the secretion of saliva, and no indications of
any fright or pain appear. “The skin of a dog can be subjected to
cutting, pinching or burning, and the only result we shall obtain will be
the manifesta­tion of what, judging from our own experience, we should
call the symptoms of the keenest appetite; the animal follows the
experimenter about, licks himself, and saliva flows in abundance.” This,
it must be remembered, occurs in the absence of the offer or sight of
food, at the time in question. He adds: “In this way we have been able
to divert the impulses from one path to another according to the
conditions, and we cannot avoid the conclusion that the diversion of an
impulse from one path to another represents one of the most important
functions of the highest parts of the central nervous system.” The
presence of certain special conditions, he points out, causes the
indifferent stimulus, which would otherwise be dispersed in the higher
centres, to be directed to a particular focus, and eventually to lay down
for itself a path to that part. A very interesting detail of such a building
of a new reflex is that “the stimuli from which the new reflex is to be
worked out shall be rigidly isolated.” Therefore to avoid any interference
with the certainty of the experiment, such matters as a personal bodily
odour or kind of movement, or even such a slight fact as a change in
the mode of breathing familiar to the dog on the part of the
experimenter, has in the latest experiments been removed by the
applica­tion of the stimuli by mechanical devices worked from another
room, with results similar to the earlier ones. Conditional reflexes can
also be obtained from stimuli arising from the locomotor apparatus, as
the joints, eliminating the stimuli arising from the skin. Also certain
parts of the frontal lobes were extirpated and “when one part is
extirpated the reflex is obtained from the flexion of the joint, but not
from the skin; if a different part be removed we can get the skin-reflex,
but not the reflex from the joint.” He extirpated in one case the greater
portion of the posterior part of the brain and the dog lived for several
years after this in complete health. It was found easy to obtain a
conditional reflex for various intensities of illumina­tion, also for sound,
and even a fine differentia­tion of tones. In another dog the anterior half
of the brain was removed and all the reflexes before worked out in this
animal disappeared, and yet in this helpless condition of the dog he
could train it to give that response of the salivary glands which he called
the “water-reflex,” in which first of all an irritating acid was introduced
into the mouth and the subsequent administra­tion of water provoked an
abundant secretion of saliva which does not occur when water is poured
into the mouth of a normal dog. This was confirmed in another example
in which alone the centre for smell had been spared, and yet it was
possible in it to train the smell-reflexes also. I add one striking sentence
from Pawlow’s address which, though an opinion, must be received with
the respect it deserves from such a source. “It is perhaps not rash to
think that some of the newly-formed conditional reflexes can be
transmitted hereditarily and become unconditional thereby.”

Indirect Evidence.
From these limited but cogent pieces of evidence I turn to the larger
but confirmatory lines of indirect evidence and inference, of which such
works as those of Professors Sherrington, Bayliss, and Starling, the
notable address of Professor Macdonald at Portsmouth in 1911, as well
as the recent work of Professor Woods Jones on Arboreal Man, are full.
Indeed if the construc­tion of new reflexes and reflex-arcs in organic
evolution “forged by an incident of use” as Professor Macdonald puts it,
were expunged from these works, their treatment of the physiology of
the central nervous system of higher animals would be emasculated, to
say the least of it. And yet not one of these eminent men is writing ad
hoc, or for the confusion of Weismann and his followers. At this point it
may perhaps gain for the remaining pages a little more considera­tion
from opponents if I give a few quotations from these writers in support
of the foregoing statement—perhaps the breeze of authority may then
carry my little bark a little further on its perilous voyage. Professor
Sherrington remarks on the first page of his well known work, in
reference to the cell-theory, “with the progress of natural knowledge,
biology has passed beyond the confines of the study of merely visible
form, and is turning more and more to the subtle and deeper sciences
that are branches of energetics. The cell-theory and the doctrine of
evolution find their scope more and more, therefore, in the problems of
function, and have become more and more identified with the aim and
incorporated among the methods of physiology.” Again, “Mere
experience can apart from reason mould nervous reactions in so far as
they are plastic. The ‘bahnung’ (or facilita­tion) of a reflex exhibits this in
germ.” He uses more than once the pregnant phrase, “The canalizing
force of habit”; again, “Progress of knowledge in regard to the nervous
system has been indissolubly linked with the determina­tion of function
in it.” Speaking of the receptive-field he says of the central nervous
system, “To analyse its action we turn to the receptor organs, for to
them is traceable the initia­tion of the reactions of the centres”; of the
extero-ceptive field he says, “facing outwards on the general
environment it feels and has felt for countless ages the full stream of
the varied agencies for ever pouring upon it from the external world,”
page 20, and “each animal has experience only of those qualities of the
environment which as stimuli excite its receptors, it analyses its
environment in terms of them exclusively. The integra­tion of the animal
associated with these leading segments can be briefly with partial
justice expressed by saying that the rest of the animal, so far as its
motor machinery goes, is but the servant, of them. Volitional
movements can certainly become involuntary, and conversely,
involuntary movements can sometimes be brought under the subjec­tion
of the will. From this subjec­tion it is but a short step to the acquisi­tion
of co-ordinations which express themselves as movements newly
acquired by the individual,” and, “The integrating power of the nervous
system has, in fact, in the higher animal more than in the lower,
constructed from a mere collec­tion of organs and segments a functional
unity, an individual of more perfected solidarity,” also “a single
momentary shock produces in the nervous arc a facilitating influence on
a subsequent stimulus applied even 1400σ later.” I will give but one
more statement from this work which seems to tell against my humble
position of initiative in evolution. Professor Sherrington says at the end
of his book, speaking of the adjustments of nervous reactions in the
lifetime of the individual: “These adjustments though not transmitted to
the offspring yet in higher animals form the most potent internal
condition for enabling the species to maintain and increase in sum its
dominance over the environment in which it is immersed.” A little care
in reading the foregoing chapters will show that this in no way
contradicts the views expressed.
 Facilitation.
From Professor Starling’s Principles of Human Physiology I may again
quote part of his account of Facilita­tion or “Bahnung.” “When an
impulse has passed through a certain set of neurones to the exclusion
of others it will tend, other things being equal, to take the same course
on a future occasion, and each time it traverses this path the resistance
in the path will be smaller. Education is the laying down of nerve-
channels in the central nervous system, while still plastic, by the
process of ‘Bahnung’ along fit paths combined with inhibi­tion (by pain)
in the other unfit paths. Memory itself has the process of facilita­tion for
its neural basis,” again, “stimula­tion of one anterior root produces no
definite movement of a group of muscles, but partial contrac­tion of a
number of muscles which do not normally contract simultaneously.
Thus, stimula­tion of a sensory nerve may provoke either flexion or
extension of a limb, not both simultaneously. Stimula­tion of the motor
roots will cause simultaneous contrac­tion of both flexor and extensor
muscles. It is this subordina­tion of morphological to physiological
arrangements in the limbs which has necessitated the founda­tion of
limb-plexuses.” (Italics not in the original). Professor Graham Kerr in his
work on Embryology before mentioned says: “In early stages of
Evolution, whether phylogenetic or ontogenetic, we may take it that
vital impulses flitted hither and thither in an indefinite manner within
the living substance and that one of the features of progressive
evolution has been the gradual more and more precise defini­tion of the
pathways of particular types of impulse, as well as the transmitting and
receiving centres between which they pass. We may then regard the
appearance of neuro-fibrils within the protoplasmic rudiment of the
nerve-trunk as the coming into view of tracks, along which, owing to
their high conductivity, nerve-impulses are repeatedly passing. It may
be that as each successive passer-by causes a jungle-pathway to
become more clearly defined so each passing impulse makes the way
easier for its successors and makes it less likely for them to stray into
the surrounding substance” (p. 112).
Professor Macdonald, in the Portsmouth address referred to, speaking
of the states of the cells under excita­tion, rest, and inhibi­tion, says
“excita­tion is associated with an increase in pressure of certain particles
within the cells; in rest these particles are in their normal quantity and
have their normal number. During inhibi­tion they are decreased in
number or have a retarded motion. Thus it happens that the excited cell
tends to grow in size, on the other hand the inhibited cell tends to
diminish, and the resting cell to remain unaltered in the nervous
system. Structure is everywhere the outcome of function.” Speaking of
the relationship of parts within the nervous system, “In so far as it is
fixed, it is a sign of the orderly action of circumstance upon the
structures of the body, and the result rather than the cause of the
monotony of existence. I hold it as probable that all the individual
structures of the nervous system, and so in the brain, have just so
much difference from one another in size and shape and in function as
is the outcome of that measure of physical experience to which each
one of them has been subjected; and that the physiological function of
each one of them is of the simplest kind. The magnificent utility of the
whole system, where the individual units have such simplicity, is due to
the physically developed peculiarities of their arrangement in relation to
one another, and to the receptive surfaces and motor-organs of the
body.” As to the lens-system of the eyeball he remarks, “Surely there is
no escape from the statement that either external agency cognisant of
light, or light itself has formed and developed to such a state of perfec­‐
tion this purely optical mechanism, and that natural selection can have
done no more than assist in this process.” He applies the same
conclusion to the formation of the sound-conducting and resonant
portion of the ear as well as the semi-circular canals and to the
cerebellum. These statements are not strictly associated with this
chapter but bear by analogy very strongly on the matter at issue.
Indeed the whole of this address might be utilised by a junior counsel
for Lamarck if he rested alone on the authority of a leading physiologist.
The same may be said of the anatomist whose Arboreal Man has
attracted so much attention. Speaking of the arboreal habit in the
phylogenetic history of mammals he asks the question, “How did this
factor enable that particular stock to acquire supremacy?” and says that
it will be answered as far as it is possible, by the study of the influence
of the arboreal habit upon the animal body; which may be put in
another way as the produc­tion of reflex-arcs suited thereto (p. 3.) Of
the muscle groups of fore and hind limbs he says, “With a simple
arrangement of anatomical parts a slight shifting of muscular origins
has turned a perfectly mobile second segment into a supporting
segment constructed upon very simple lines: that these changes are
those produced by the demands of support from the hind-limbs in tree-
climbing seems obvious” (p. 6); of the position of uprightness upon a
flexed thigh of an arboreal man, “It is tree-climbing which makes this
posture a possibility” (p. 63). “But it is not to be doubted that the
underlying principle is clear enough, that the arboreal habit develops
the specialised and opposable thumb and big toe” (p. 71). “Even before
the power of grasp is developed, we may imagine the dawn stages of
educational advances initiated by hand-touch” (p. 159). “Tactile
impressions gained through the hand are therefore perpetually
streaming into the brain of an arboreal animal and new avenues of
learning about its surroundings are being opened up as additions to the
olfactory and snout-tactile routes” (p. 160). He asks also the pertinent
question, and says at least a partial answer to it can be given, “Did the
cerebral advance create the physical adaptations, or did the physical
adaptations make possible a cerebral advance?” (p. 196). Two more
statements from this chapter show what the answer to this question
from the anatomist would be—“and again in the evolutionary story we
are forced back to consider a combina­tion of seemingly trivial, and
apparently chance associations: in this case the dawning possibilities of
neo-pallial developments combined with the physical adaptations due
directly to environmental influences” (p. 198). I have ventured to
underline this passage.
I regret the necessary length of these quotations but, on account of
them, can the better be suffered to finish this study, when I briefly
consider certain well-known nervous reactions in the cat and dog as to
their probable origin. It would be a highly interesting thing to hear an
exposi­tion by an expert of all the reflexes and reflex-arcs of such a
system as those which in a cat, dog, ape, or man are concerned with
the passage of a morsel of food from the mouth through all its
chequered and varied career till it undergoes metabolism and excretion,
but I could not do it if I would, and would not here if I could, because
of their fundamental fixed and innate character, and I think it simpler
and safer to refer to such minor reflex-arcs as those which govern the
scratch-reflex in a dog, the pinna reflexes in a cat, and a few smaller
ones, on the principle of ex uno disce omnes. Such minor nerve-
mechanisms as these in a pair of well-known domesticated animals will
suffice for evidence on behalf of initiative in evolution.

The Scratch Reflex.

The scratch-reflex in the dog, which like the tendon-reflex in man was
in my youth a subject for schoolboy tricks, has received a vast amount
of attention and research from physiologists to whom it has brought
valuable fruit. It is a familiar phenomenon in a familiar friend of man.
There is a saddle-shaped area on the back of the dog over which it was
found empirically that even a light stimulus when applied rhythmically,
produces the “scalptor-reflex” or a reflex rhythmical action of the flexor
muscles of the leg on the same side, calculated to remove the irritating
causes of the stimulus. This includes a series of receptors in the skin
leading to a spinal segment in the region of the shoulder, a long
neurone in the cord, then a motor neurone, the axon from which
activates the flexor muscles of the leg and produces scratching. It is
described as an efferent arc from receptor to the motor neurone, from
which the Final Common Path supplies the motor apparatus or effector.
Professor Sherrington says that in this reflex a single stimulus which is
far below threshold intensity is found on its fortieth repeti­tion and
nearly four seconds after its first applica­tion to become effective and
provoke the reflex and that its frequency is about 4.5 per second. The
reflex movement remains rhythmic and clonic under the strongest as
under weaker stimula­tion. When it is easily elicitable the scratch-reflex
can be evoked by various forms of electrical as well as mechanical
stimula­tion, but, when not easily elicitable, electrical stimula­tion fails
whereas rubbing or other mechanical forms of stimuli still evoke it,
though less vigorously than usual. This reflex can also be set aside by
the “nociceptive arc from the homonymous foot” or, in other words, a
nocuous stimulus to the leg of that side produces “interferences which
amounts to inhibi­tion.” Empirically it is easy to notice also that if the
“scalptor-reflex” can be elicited on both sides of the body, the dog when
standing will momentarily lose the power in the hind legs.
Note.—The rhythm of this reflex act is so special even to the layman
that lately I had a singular confirma­tion of its stereotyped character,
when lying awake at night and being puzzled by a curious rhythmical
scratching sound coming from my next door neighbour’s back yard. It
might have been taken by a wakeful person for some mechanical work
on the part of a burglar, but after listening repeatedly to the apparently
familiar sound I found that it came from the kennel of a fox terrier kept
by my neighbour.

Purposes of Reflexes.
All reflexes being purposive this particular innate reflex is acknowledged
to have for its purpose the grooming or cleaning of the skin over its
hereditary territory. This introduces its connec­tion with initiative here
propounded, and the justifica­tion for its introduc­tion is contained in
Professor Sherrington’s statement that “In the analysis of the animal’s
life as a machine in action there can be split off from its total behaviour
fractional pieces which may be treated conveniently, though artificially,
apart, and among these are the reflexes we have been attempting to
decipher”—scratch-reflexes and others. There seems to be no reason
for the existence and stereotyped character of this reflex except the
need or rather the desire (if one may use a convenient but inaccurate
term) on the part of the dog to remove an irritant which disturbs its
comfort when at rest. Some “minor horrors,” probably fleas moving
across the skin-receptive field of its shoulder and back, must be
assumed to be the irritant in question. This touches the great question
of the initiative of this remarkable reflex, which seems more fixed and
powerful in the dog as we know him than that other reflex which leads
him to turn tail and flee immediately he sees a boy stoop down as if to
pick up a stone. I dare say a clever advocate on the opposite side might
impress a jury by building up a case under which an adapta­tion to a
protective need would be conceived as responsible for the rapid flight at
the sight of the threatening attitude of the boy. Such a reconstruc­tion is
not required, for it is perfectly clear that in the history of the
domesticated dog the selection of such an adapted reflex could have no
place. The survival-value of this reflex would be nil, for the number of
dogs killed by a stone or maimed for life would be so negligible that the
produc­tion of a specialised reflex for the purpose by selection or
survival of the fittest would not arise. Obviously the danger would be
intermittent and rare; and dead dogs tell no tales. On the other hand it
would be highly unpleasant for dogs to be hit by stones and educability
would lead them to avoid the stooping attitude associated with missiles.
We are told on high authority that not education but educability is
transmissible, and yet this humble reflex appears in very young dogs
that could hardly if ever have known the impact of a stone. Incidentally
we are compelled to remember how in past battles of our youth the aim
both of “ourselves and the enemy” was deplorably poor, and not from
want of practice. This school-boy-stone reflex is either an example of
educational effects transmitted or of a minute bit of the unpacking of an
original complexity which it would require the brain of a de Quincey to
work out. But if we suppose the initial stages of such a stimulus as the
occasional impact of a stone in many generations to be slowly ingrained
in the skin-receptors, reflex-arcs and receptors we do not need opium
either for the acceptance of orthodox dogma or to aid us in the
Mendelian alternative to a very simple ideal construc­tion.
This digression bears on the initiative of the more important scratch-
reflex, and it is profitable to ask “are not both of these reflexes in dogs
examples of Evolution of the Indifferent?” Is it possible to imagine that
from its inception to its fully-formed state, with a specialised territory of
skin-receptors accurately mapped out, with receptor neurones, reflex-
arcs and adapted effectors, this scratch-reflex can have arisen through
Germinal Selection or selective processes within the germ? At no stage
can anything more than a contribu­tion to more or less comfort to the
animal be held to result from its operation. It is strangely reminiscent of
the proceedings of an elderly man after lunch on a hot day when he
protects his head against house-flies with a handkerchief. I am aware
that it is but one of a large number of reflexes produced for the
purpose of grooming the trunk head or limbs of animals as low down in
the scale as the house-fly or grasshopper, many of which were
beautifully described a few years ago by Miss Frances Pitt in the
National Review in an article dealing with small mammals, chiefly
rodents. But I have availed myself here as elsewhere, of the liberty of
doing what Professor Sherrington says we may do, and consider this
scratch-reflex as split off from the rest of the animal’s behaviour for the
purpose of analysis. He also says in discussing the subject of parasites
moving across the receptive surface of the skin that the ulterior purpose
may be the removal of what “would confuse its function as a receptive
surface to more significant environmental stimuli.” This statement is
hypothetical and the problem obscure; but at any rate we know this
that the removal of the parasite must conduce to the greater comfort of
the dog without any more recondite purpose. The one suggested by
Professor Sherrington would in some possible but very vague manner
be referable to selection, but, whether the sugges­tion be valid or not, it
is almost impossible to suppose that a saddle-shaped area of the kind
described could be under the guidance of selection. The law of
Parcimony forbids. There is a close similarity between this saddle-
shaped area in the dog and that on the cow’s trunk described in
Chapter X. It is difficult to believe that from man downwards to
grasshoppers relief from mild irritating causes such as this is not
enjoyable to the particular animal, and yet indifferent altogether as to
its survival in the struggles of life for food and mates. The “scalptor-
reflex” only reaches the limits of the receptive field of the scratch-reflex
and it is contrary to observed facts that parasites confine their
depredations just to the region where the formidable scalptor-reflex can
reach. The wicked flea knows better than that. The initiative of this
reflex can well be pictured as taking place in domesticated dogs and
their wild ancestors whose habitats in prehistoric times were probably
infested with these irritants to such a degree that no modern mind can
conceive, and the adequate stimuli, leading to receptors after ages of
impact and consequent hammering out pathways through certain
reflex-arcs until the required weapons of offence or effectors were
organised into a defensive-offensive system—were there in profusion.
But a great and fundamental principle of the evolutionary process such
as Selection is not honoured by being dragged in, even for forensic
purposes, to account for results which owe to the search for comfort
their perfec­tion of organisa­tion. I have personally seen in some
professional invalids of the softer sex nearly as perfect adaptations to
their comfort which in no way contributed to their length of life. This
may be put aside as irrelevant but it is at least suggestive.
I submit the statement as to the scratch-reflex in the dog that from
beginning to end it is an indifferent mechanism and the probability is
immense that its initial stages were governed alone by repeated stimuli
from parasites which produced receptors, conducting fibres afferent
neurones and efferent neurones, leading into the Final Common Path
controlling the flexors of the hind limb. It would then come under the
Law of Subjective or Hedonic Selection formulated by Professor Stout in
the words: “Lines of action, if and so far as they are unsuccessful, tend
to be discontinued or varied; and those which prove successful to be
maintained. There is a constant tending to persist in those movements
and motor attitudes which yield satisfactory experiences, and to renew
them when similar conditions recur; on the other hand those
movements and attitudes which yield unsatisfactory experiences tend to
be discontinued at the time of their occurrence, and to be suppressed
on subsequent similar occasions.”
In this connection a statement from Professor McDougall’s work may be
advantageously quoted. He says that “It is characteristic of those (arcs)
of the higher or third level that their organisa­tion, their
interconnections, by means of which the simpler neural systems of
great complexity, is congenitally determined in a very partial degree
only, and is principally determined in each individual by the course of its
experience. The arcs of the higher level thus constitute the physiological
basis or condition of docility, the power of learning by experience.” 88
(My italics)

Scratch Reflex of the Cat.

There is a notable difference between the scratch-reflex of the dog and
that of the cat, especially as to the site of its receptive-field. That of the
dog has been referred to, but it appears to be generally accepted that
the cat has no such saddle-shaped or indeed other area of skin
receptive-field on its back or flanks. I have repeatedly tried by various
mechanical stimuli, applied both irregularly and rhythmically, to evoke a
scratch-reflex in a cat, young or adult, on the surface corresponding to
that of the dog, and have found no response. This has been tried both
when the animal was awake and when asleep. But the receptive field of
the cat’s scratch-reflex has received careful and elaborate attention,
which is described in a paper by Professor Sherrington in the Journal of
Physiology, Vol. LI. No. 6. By means of delicate stimuli, mechanical and
electrical in a decerebrate cat, the receptive-field of the scratch-reflex
has been accurately delineated in the pinna, and several other pure
reflexes have been obtained. These are protective of the pinna; some,
the retrac­tion and folding reflexes seem directed against irritant
touches, e.g. the settling of fleas—or against exposure to injury in
fighting; others, the cover and head-shake and scratch-reflexes against
the ingress of foreign matter, such as dust, water, insects, into the
meatus and ampulla. The threshold for their elicita­tion is extremely low,
that is to say, they require very gentle stimuli to evoke them, while with
the exception of the scratch-reflex they are elicited with difficulty and
uncertainty by electrical stimuli (My italics) to which the animal has
been subjected in the course of its total experience. He adds that the
pinnal reflexes are readily obtained in the normal animal, and I may
allude here to some small observations I made on a normal young cat
during profound sleep, recorded in Nature, Vol. 106, Sept. 2, 1920.
Light mechanical stimuli, applied during this state of deep sleep to the
internal surface of the pinna, especially close to the meatus, produced
first, twitching of the facial muscles on the same side; second, as this
ceased the fore foot was moved irregularly towards the ear, and third,
as this ceased a rhythmical scratching action of the hind foot took its
place, the rate of which seemed to be exactly the same as that of the
scratch-reflex in the dog evoked from stimula­tion of the flank and back.
I had not then, unfortunately read more than an abstract of the above
paper, but if the full account be followed it will be seen that the various
“territories” belonging to all the former-reflexes are now known as well
as the frontiers of a European Kingdom. All I was able to do with this
unusual opportunity of a heavy sleep in a normal young cat was to
verify more roughly Professor Sherrington’s observations and slightly to
extend them in respect of a sleeping animal.
In the course of these observations on a young cat I examined the
various regions of the back and flanks with mechanical stimuli of
different degrees of strength. These were applied during sleep and I
found that it was more often during a moderate than a light or deep
sleep that the following results were shown—chiefly under the stronger
stimuli the tail was raised sharply and swept in a circular way, and this
would be repeated according as the stimulus was applied; but at the
same time there was shown a strong, irregular twitching along the
flank, extending forwards to a point near the level of the shoulder. This
latter reflex would appear to be a reaction on the part of the panniculus
carnosus. Both the reflex of the muscles of the tail and this of the flanks
appear to be connected in their origin with movements of parasites in
their respective territories.
In considering the scratch-reflex in the cat a subtle bit of adjustment is
found. That coarse and simple scratching of its ear, which we see so
often in the cat, must have often astonished us for its vigour and yet its
bloodless character. This action is of course a purposeful one, for it goes
on when the animal is awake. Here if anywhere this profoundly
hedonistic animal shows that for it the laws of comfort are its laws of
conduct. It is clear that there may be two processes or conditions
involved in its bloodless violence. On the one hand the reflex retractile
mechanism of the claws may be kept in abeyance by another reaction
which is pre-potent; on the other, it is a fact that the hind foot in the
cat is furnished with claws which are much blunter than those of the
fore foot. As far as I have been able to examine cats of different ages I
have found the claws of the hind foot more like the blunt claws of a dog
than the familiar sharp claws of the Felidæ. So in the violent scratching
referred to there may be a double reason associated in the process. As
to the difference in the sharpness of the fore and hind claws it would
appear to be remarkably like a transmitted bit of adapta­tion initiated
and kept in being by use and habit in progression, for the hind foot in
such animals as the cat has a larger share in this action than the fore
foot. But here it is difficult as so often to assign to selection its possible
share of the adjustment.
Certain minor but persistent reflexes may be briefly mentioned in
support of this side of the evolutionary process. In the dog and cat, as
we know them, the action of the muscles of the tail by which it is
elevated during the act of defæca­tion is very suggestive of a reflex
acquired by a very small degree of physical comfort and repeated in
countless individuals, wild and domesticated. I have seen not only this
but a few small scratches made by a cat before defæca­tion in a kitten
as young as three weeks old. It is also mentioned in illustra­tion of a
vestigial character that a horse will paw the ground with no immediate
apparent object, the act being derived from ancestors which thus
cleared away snow from the ground. This is claimed, doubtfully I think,
as a vestige of a formerly useful habit but seems more probably to be
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebooknice.com