88 THE FOUNDATIONS OF ZOOLOGY 



the female often dies in the act of laying her eggs. To most ani- 

 mals the impulse to use these organs comes before they can have 

 any experience of its purpose, and the fulfilment of this purpose is 

 separated, by such a length of time, from the act of use, that few 

 animals can possibly have any knowledge of the relation between the 

 two events. When this relation is most clearly understood, we find, 

 instead of a desire to increase the fitness of these organs for their 

 purpose, a well-marked impulse to enjoy the gratification, without 

 the burden of care and responsibility which comes, in course of 

 nature, when their true purpose is accomplished. 



How can the Lamarckian deal with a case like this where 

 conscious effort is ruled out, and where the true use is the benefit of 

 a being which was not in existence as such at the time when the 

 organs were used ? 



The same thing is true of all our other natural passions and 

 appetites. So far as the actions to which they lead are voluntary, 

 they are attended with pleasure, or else their restraint is attended 

 with discomfort, but we are usually quite unconscious of their real 

 use, until this is discovered by the indirect methods of scientific 

 inquiry. Hunger stimulates the animal to actions which satisfy the 

 calls of hunger ; but the mere satisfaction of hunger is of no use, 

 and the real function of the digestive organs, the nutrition of the 

 tissues, goes on in unconsciousness. 



The snake's poisoned fang and the bee's sting and the perfume 

 of the flower are useful, but the useful property is an effect on other 

 organisms than the one which exhibits the adjustment. If any one 

 thinks he can see how this sort of adjustment might be brought 

 about, or even essentially aided, through the inheritance, by one 

 being, of the influence of its structure on another being, I cannot 

 reason with him ; for I find his thesis quite unthinkable. 



It is most important to note that this is not a special plea, based 

 upon exceptional cases. I have called attention to these examples 

 because, far from being exceptions, they are simple and obvious 

 illustrations of a general law, for all of the adaptations of nature are 

 of this sort. 



In all cases, the structure, habits, instincts, and faculties of living 

 things, from the upward growth of the plumule of the sprouting 

 seed to the moral sense of man, are primarily for the good of other 



