256 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



regulated in the performance, of complicated behavior which 

 is sensually gratifying and, under normal circumstances, simul- 

 taneously beneficial to the individual, or the race. 



Instinctive acts are performed without previous experience 

 or training on the part of the animal, and are, nevertheless, 

 at least in the majority of cases, perfect in their first per- 

 formance. A few, like the pecking-instinct of young chickens, 

 are slightly improvable through sentient experience, e.g. the 

 young chick, at first undiscriminating in the choice of the 

 particles which it picks up, learns later by associative mem- 

 ory to distinguish what is tasty and edible from what is 

 disagreeable and inedible, but, for the most part, the perfec- 

 tion of instinctive acts is independent of prior experience. 

 Hence instinct is entirely different from human reason, which, 

 in the solution of problems, is compelled to begin with re- 

 flection upon the data furnished by previous experience, or 

 education. The animal, however, in its instinctive opera- 

 tions, without pausing to investigate, deliberate, or cal- 

 culate, proceeds imhesitatingly on the very first occasion 

 to a prompt and perfect solution of its problems. Hence, 

 without study, consultation, planning, or previous apprentice- 

 ship of any sort, and in the complete absence of experimental 

 knowledge, that might serve as matter for reflection or as a 

 basis for inference, the animal is able to solve intricate prob- 

 lems in engineering, geometry, anatomy, pharmaceutics, etc., 

 which the combined intelligence of mankind required cen- 

 turies upon centuries of schooling, research, and reflection in 

 order to solve. Of two things, therefore, one: either these 

 actions do not proceed from an intelligent principle inherent 

 in the animal ; or they do, and in that case we are compelled 

 to recognize in brute animals an intelligence superior to our 

 own, because they accomplish deftly and without effort in- 

 genious feats that human reason cannot duplicate, save 

 clumsily and at the price of prolonged discipline and inces- 

 sant drudgery. 'Terhaps the strongest reason," says an 

 anonymous writer, "for not regarding the activities of instinct 



