358 . Transactions. — Zoology. 



is that of the individual only, then the exj)lanation of the 

 superiority of instinct is obvious. Instinct is the result of 

 continued selections from the experiences of countless genera- 

 tions, whilst reason is only the experience acquired during the 

 brief lifetime of a single individual. It is not surprising, 

 then, that instinct so vastly transcends the intellectual power 

 of the animal that exhibits it. I think that we may look for 

 the development of human instinct when most of our indivi- 

 dual experience or knowledge has become hereditary. At 

 present only the capacity for acquiring knowledge is inherited 

 by human beings, but, judging from the facts above con- 

 sidered, knowledge itself must in time be inherited also. So 

 far from supposing, then, that we have lost our instincts 

 through civihsation, I do not think that they have yet been 

 evolved. Now nearly all our results have to be attained by 

 long training and laborious mental calculations, but in the 

 future we may hope to arrive at far greater results by almost 

 unconscious instinctive processes. 



