DARWIN, AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 2O/ 



caterpillars in only these nine intensely localized spots. Finally, 

 in the case of our species, it is self-evident," says Romanes, " that 

 the aesthetic, moral, and religious instincts admit of a natural and 

 easy explanation on the hypothesis of use-inheritance, while such 

 is by no means the case if that hypothesis be rejected." 



No phenomena in the whole realm of nature are more difficult 

 to handle than those Romanes here refers to. Many, no doubt, 

 think, with him, that they are inexplicable by natural selection, 

 although few among those who, so far, think as he does, seem 

 likely to find satisfaction in that view of morality and religion 

 which attributes these things to the inheritance of the effects of 

 use. 



We have already asked, page 66, what evidence there is that 

 function ever does produce structure, either in the race or in the 

 individual ; and we have seen that when organs are improved by 

 normal use, structures for bringing this useful end about already 

 exist. Capacity for improvement by practice is itself an adapta- 

 tion which calls for explanation, rather than an explanation or 

 cause of adaptation. 



The opinion that deliberate acts, habits, instincts, and reflex 

 acts form a descending series, in which each lower manifestation 

 has, at some time in the past, climbed down from the top of the 

 ladder seems to commend itself to many. For this reason I have 

 quoted Romanes's recent statement at some length, although no 

 one can, with logical consistency, find, in this opinion, even if it 

 be well founded, any help in accounting for the origin of 

 instincts, or that of reflex acts, if deliberate acts are themselves 

 mechanical and dependent upon the presence of adaptive structure. 



If practice does no more than to correct responsive actions 

 and to reduce them to exactness by the repression of those that 

 are vague and indefinite and by the preservation of those that 

 are exact and definite, how can it add anything to the nature of 

 organisms? Romanes not only considers it proved that delib- 

 erate acts are mechanical, but he also holds that the only way 

 to escape what he regards as the materialistic consequences of 

 this conviction is to be found in the monistic creed that " the 

 antithesis between mind and motion subject and object is 

 itself phenomenal or apparent ; not absolute or real." " We have 



