operations, and until he has done what comes to the same thing many
times over, with what show of reason can we maintain that one who is
so far less capable than a grown man, can perform such vastly more
difficult operations, without knowing how to do them, and without
ever having done them before? There is no sign of "fluke" about the
circulation of a baby's blood. There may perhaps be some little
hesitation about its earliest breathing, but this, as a general rule,
soon passes over, both breathing and circulation, within an hour
after birth, being as regular and easy as at any time during life.
Is it reasonable, then, to say that the baby does these things
without knowing how to do them, and without ever having done them
before, and continues to do them by a series of lifelong flukes?

It would be well if those who feel inclined to hazard such an
assertion would find some other instances of intricate processes gone
through by people who know nothing about them, and never had any
practice therein. What IS to know how to do a thing? Surely to do
it. What is proof that we know how to do a thing? Surely the fact
that we can do it. A man shows that he knows how to throw the
boomerang by throwing the boomerang. No amount of talking or writing
can get over this; ipso facto, that a baby breathes and makes its
blood circulate, it knows how to do so and the fact that it does not
know its own knowledge is only proof of the perfection of that
knowledge, and of the vast number of past occasions on which it must
have been exercised already. As we have said already, it is less
obvious when the baby could have gained its experience, so as to be
able so readily to remember exactly what to do; but it is more easy
to suppose that the necessary occasions cannot have been wanting,
than that the power which we observe should have been obtained
without practice and memory.