of any kind will immediately determine a recommencement of the
manoeuvre.
[Illustration: Fig. 50.]
[Illustration: Fig. 51.]
It will be perceived that as soon as the position just described has
been attained, gravity, which had hitherto been acting in opposition
to the righting movement, now begins to favour that movement. It
might, therefore, be anticipated that the Echinus would now simply
let go all its attachments and allow itself to roll over into its
natural position But an Echinus will never let go its attachments
without some urgent reason, seeming to be above all things afraid
of being rolled about at the mercy of currents; and therefore in
this case it lets itself down almost as slowly as it raised itself
up. So gently, indeed, is the downward movement effected, that an
observer can scarcely tell the precise moment at which the righting
is concluded. Therefore, in the downward movement, the feet, which
at the earlier part of the manoeuvre were employed successfully in
rearing the globe upon its equator, are now employed successfully in
preventing its too rapid descent (Fig. 52).
[Illustration: Fig. 52.]
Several interesting questions arise with reference to these righting
movements of Echinus. First of all we are inclined to ask what it is
that determines the choice of the rows of feet which are delegated
to effect the movements. As the animal has a geometrical form of
perfect symmetry, we might suppose that when it is placed upon its
pole, all the five rows of feet would act in antagonism to one
another; for there seems nothing more to determine either the action
or the inaction of one row rather than another. Indeed, if there
were any moral philosophers among the Echinoderms, they might point
with triumph to the fact of their being able to right themselves as
an irrefutable argument in favour of the freedom of the Echinoderm
will. "We are in form," they might say, "perfectly geometrical, and
our feet-rows are all arranged with perfect symmetry; therefore there
is no reason, apart from the sovereign freedom of our choice, why we
should ever use one set of feet rather than another in executing this
important movement." And indeed, I do not see how these Echinoderm
philosophers could be answered by any of the human philosophers,
who, with less mathematical data and with less physiological reason,
employ analogous arguments to prove the freedom of the human will.
Physiologists, however, would give these Echinoderm philosophers
the same answer that they are in the habit of giving to the human
philosophers, viz. that although the physiological conditions are
very nicely balanced, they are never _so_ nicely balanced as to leave
positively nothing to determine which rows of feet--that is to say,
which sets of nerves--shall be used. And in this connection I may
observe that on making a number of trials it becomes apparent in the
case of certain individual specimens that they manifested a marked
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Jelly-Fish, Star-Fish, and Sea-Urchins: Being a Research on Primitive Nervous Systems — John Shaqi
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