Note 44 — Chapter III · Characters as Hereditary and Acquired (continued).

Of course it will be observed that the question is not with regard to the development of all the nerves and muscles concerned in this particular process. It is as to the development of the co-ordinating centres, which thus so delicately respond to the special stimuli furnished by variations of angle to the horizon. And it is as inconceivable in this case of reflex action, as it is in almost every other case of reflex action, that the highly specialized machinery required for performing the adaptive function can ever have had its origin in the performance of any other function. Indeed, a noticeable peculiarity of reflex mechanisms as a class is the highly specialized character of the functions which their highly organized structures subserve.