36 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



As we said, we cannot study here minutely all the 

 varieties of combinations of movement which occur in the 

 animal kingdom. For many of them, it is true, we are 

 able to imagine a machine that would represent how 

 they take place : for the sake of simplicity let us take 

 it for granted that a machine actually exists here, though 

 it is not by any means proved. 



But are there not cases of combination of movements, 

 most familiar to all of you, for which it is by no means 

 clear from the beginning that a machine even could be 

 present as their foundation ? Are there not at least a 

 few classes of animal movements which common sense 

 daily describes by words which seem to express anything 

 but the conviction that they are simple, mechanical, and 

 machine-like events ? 



Instinct is one of these classes of animal movements, 

 and it is with instinct that our analytical study will 

 have to deal in this chapter. 



a. INSOLUBLE PEOBLEMS 



The problem of instinct used to be one of the chief 

 points in the fight between Darwinians and Lamarckians. 

 As we cannot accept either of these theories, it follows 

 that we shall not study instinct from the usual points 

 of view. It may suffice to state here that the specific 

 instincts of the worker-bees, which are excluded from 

 propagation, would never be open to any Lamarckian 

 explanation, as Weismann has most clearly demonstrated ; 

 and on the other hand, every Darwinian explanation fails 

 here for the same general reasons for which it fails in 



