68 THE FOUNDATIONS OF ZOOLOGY 



vides for, what are we to say of the acquisition of knowledge ? 

 Does this come by nature and not by nurture ? 



The use of language is an acquired art, and not an innate 

 faculty. Whitney reminds us (" Life and Growth of Language," 

 p. 279) that "though possessing the endowments of a Homer 

 or a Demosthenes, no man can speak any language until he has 

 learned it, as truly learned it as he learns the multiplication table, 

 or the demonstrations of Euclid." 



I have tried to show, page 53, that since each vital act is a 

 response to a sign with a significance, life is the use of the 

 language of nature ; and it follows, if this phrase is to be taken 

 literally, that life is an acquired art, and not a natural inheritance. 

 I have tried to show, page 9, that this may be the case, since it may 

 be the adaptive mechanism, and not its responsive activity, which is 

 inherited from parent by child. 



While no one can come into possession of a language without 

 learning it, and while each acquires the tongue which the acci- 

 dent of birth places within his reach, Whitney reminds us that 

 man learns language because " he possesses, as one of his most 

 marked and distinctive characteristics, a faculty or capacity of 

 speech, or, more accurately, various faculties and capacities which 

 lead inevitably to the production of speech ; but the faculties are 

 on.e thing, and their elaborated products are another and very 

 different one." 



" It needs not only the inward power, but also the outward 

 occasion, to make man what he is capable of becoming." 



This is no place for a treatise on human knowledge, but I 

 think that the mind to know truth seems, to most, as essential as 

 truth to be known ; for it does not seem good common sense to 

 attribute our minds to either the direct or the indirect effects of 

 knowledge. The general opinion seems to be that our minds 

 come by nature, rather than by nurture, although some, who 

 admit that our minds are ours by nature, strangely suppose that 

 these same minds may be efficient causes of changes in our 

 nature. 



It is legitimate and relevant to ask the difficult question 

 whether natural knowledge is the discovery of truth, or only the 

 avoidance of error; and there is much to be said in favor of 



