The above is mainly taken from M. Ribot’s work on heredity rather than Dr. Carpenter’s, because M. Ribot tells us that the head of the frog was actually cut off, a fact which does not appear so plainly in Dr. Carpenter’s allusion to the same experiments. But Dr. Carpenter tells us that _after the brain of a frog has been removed_—which would seem to be much the same thing as though its head were cut off—“if acetic acid be applied over the upper and under part of the thigh, the foot of the same side will wipe it away; _but if that foot be cut off_, _after some ineffectual efforts and a short period of inaction_,” during which it is hard not to surmise that the headless body is considering what it had better do under the circumstances, “_the same movement will be made by the foot of the opposite side_,” which, to ordinary people, would convey the impression that the headless body was capable of feeling the impressions it had received, and of reasoning upon them by a psychological act; and this of course involves the possession of a soul of some sort. Here is a frog whose right thigh you burn with acetic acid. Very naturally it tries to get at the place with its right foot to remove the acid. You then cut off the frog’s head, and put more acetic acid on the some place: the headless frog, or rather the body of the late frog, does just what the frog did before its head was cut off—it tries to get at the place with its right foot. You now cut off its right foot: the headless body deliberates, and after a while tries to do with its left foot what it can no longer do with its right. Plain matter-of-fact people will draw their own inference. They will not be seduced from the superficial view of the matter. They will say that the headless body can still, to some extent, feel, think, and act, and if so, that it must have a living soul. Dr. Carpenter writes as follows:—“Now the performance of these, as well as of many other movements, that show a most remarkable adaptation to a purpose, might be supposed to indicate that sensations are called up by the _impressions_, and that the animal can not only _feel_, but can voluntarily direct its movements so as to get rid of the irritation which annoys it. But such an inference would be inconsistent with other facts. In the first place, the motions performed under such circumstances are never spontaneous, but are always excited by a stimulus of some kind.” Here we pause to ask ourselves whether any action of any creature under any circumstances is ever excited without “stimulus of some kind,” and unless we can answer this question in the affirmative, it is not easy to see how Dr. Carpenter’s objection is valid.