Certainly it presents itself to us as a singular coincidence--
I. That we are _most conscious of_, _and have most control over_, such
habits as speech, the upright position, the arts and sciences--which are
acquisitions peculiar to the human race, always acquired after birth, and
not common to ourselves and any ancestor who had not become entirely
human.
II. That we are _less conscious of_, _and have less control over_, the
use of teeth, swallowing, breathing, seeing and hearing--which were
acquisitions of our prehuman ancestry, and for which we had provided
ourselves with all the necessary apparatus before we saw light, but which
are still, geologically speaking, recent, or comparatively recent.
ill. That we are _most unconscious of_, _and have least control over_,
our digestion, which we have in common even with our invertebrate
ancestry, and which is a habit of extreme antiquity.
There is something too like method in this for it to be taken as the
result of mere chance--chance again being but another illustration of
Nature's love of a contradiction in terms; for everything is chance, and
nothing is chance. And you may take it that all is chance or nothing
chance, according as you please, but you must not have half chance and
half not chance--which, however, in practice is just what you _must_
have.
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