INSTINCT. i 4 i 



has, for the most part, nothing to learn; because its little life flows 

 from its organization like melody from a music box. But we need not 

 enlarge on this a second time. 



In seeking to understand the phenomena of instinct we of course get 

 the full benefit of the law of Natural Science, which though it throws 

 no light on the origin of anything, mental or physical — for, as Mr. 

 Darwin says, it 'has no relation whatever to the primary cause of any 

 modification of structure' — nevertheless helps us to understand the 

 existence of instincts far removed from the circumstances or condi- 

 tions of life under which they could have been acquired. Suppose a 

 Robinson Crusoe to take, soon after his landing, a couple of parrots, and 

 to teach them to say in very good English, "How do you do, sir?" — that 

 the young of these birds are also taught by Mr. Crusoe and their 

 parents to say, "How do 3 r ou do, sir?" — and that Mr. Crusoe, having 

 little else to do, sets to work to prove the doctrine of Inherited Associa- 

 tion by direct experiment. He continues his teaching, and every year 

 breeds from the birds of the last and previous years that say "How do 

 you do sir?" most frequently and with the best accent. After a suffi- 

 cient number of generations his young parrots, continually hearing 

 their parents and a hundred other birds saying "How do you do, sir?" 

 begin to repeat these words so soon that an experiment is needed to 

 decide whether it is by instinct or imitation; and perhaps it is part of 

 both. Eventually, however, the instinct is established. And though 

 now Mr. Crusoe dies, and leaves no record of his work, the instinct will 

 not die, not for a long time at least; and if the parrots themselves have 

 acquired a taste for good English the best speakers will be sexually 

 selected, and the instinct will certainly endure to astonish and perplex 

 mankind, though in truth we may as well wonder at the crowing of 

 the cock or the song of the skylark. Again, turkeys have an instinctive 

 art of catching flies, which, it is manifest, the creatures in their present 

 shape may have acquired by experience. But suppose the circumstances 

 of their life to change ; flies steadily become more abundant, and other 

 kinds of food scarcer: the best fly-catchers are now the fittest to live, 

 and each generation they are naturally selected. This process goes on, 

 experience probably adding to the instinct in ways that we need not 

 attempt to conceive, until a variety or species is produced that feeds on 

 flies alone. To look at, this new bird will differ considerably from its 

 turkey ancestors; for change in food and in habits of life will have 

 affected its physical conformation, and every useful modification of 

 structure will have been preserved by natural selection. My point 

 however is, that thus, by no inconceivable steps, would be produced a 

 race of birds depending for all their food on an instinctive art, which 

 they, as then constituted, could never have acquired, because they never 

 could have existed without it. 



