THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SOUL 265 



egg, which will be laid immediately afterwards, demands the 

 complete inertia of the prey from the outset. Hence all the 

 nerve-centers that govern locomotion must be numbed instan- 

 taneously by the virus," ("Bramble Bees," p. 347.) Bouvier, 

 therefore, very justly remarks: "After all, when Fabre's work 

 is examined there is no trouble in seeing that none of these 

 details escaped him. He never disputed the paralytic action 

 of the poison inoculated by the insect, and the wonderful 

 researches by the Peckhams on the Pompilids, which hunt 

 Lycosids, have clearly established the fact that the thrusts of 

 the sting given by the predatory insect produce two different 

 kinds of paralysis, one functional, and often temporary, re- 

 sulting from the action of the venom, the other structural and 

 persistent, produced by the dart which more or less injures 

 the nervous centers." (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1916, p. 594.) 

 In the case of predatory insects, therefore, the instinct must 

 be perfect at the outset, or survival is impossible. For the 

 origin of such instincts, Darwinism, which stresses the gradu- 

 alness of evolutionary progress, has no explanation that will 

 hold water. Lamarckism, which sees in acquired habits trans- 

 mitted by inheritance, the origin of instinct, the "memory of 

 the race," is equally at a loss to account for these instincts. 

 The formation of habits requires practice and repetition. The 

 predatory insect must be perfect at the start, and yet it only 

 exercises its remarkable instinct once a year. Where is the 

 practice and reiteration requisite for canalizing its nervous sys- 

 tem into the conduction-paths of habit? How did one particular 

 set of rarely performed acts happen to gain precedence over 

 all others, and to be alone successful in stamping themselves 

 indelibly upon the nerve plasm as habits, and upon the germ 

 plasm as instincts? De-Vriesianism, which would make the 

 acquisition and perfecting of instinct dependent upon the rare 

 and accidental contingency of a fortuitous mutation, is even 

 more objectionable. These instincts are vital to the insect. 

 If their acquisition and improvement depend upon the lucky 

 chance of a series of favorable mutations, its prospects of 



