THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SOUL 267 



generations have not been aided by the training of their 

 ancestors." {Ibidem.) 



Bouvier's conception, then, that the automatisms of instinct 

 originate as automatisms of acquired habit, the latter being 

 appropriated by inheritance, still stands in need of reliable 

 experimental confirmation. Moreover, a theory of this sort 

 could never account, as Weismann points out, for such phe- 

 nomena as the specific instincts of worker bees, which are ex- 

 cluded from propagation. Nor can the theory explain, as 

 originating in acquired hahit, those instinctive operations of 

 enormous complexity, like the complicated method of emer- 

 gence employed by the larva of the emperor moth, which only 

 occur once in a lifetime, and could not, therefore, fasten 

 themselves on the organism as a habit. 



An evolutionary origin of instinct, however, though extremely 

 improbable, is, at any rate, not absolutely inconceivable. Its 

 teleology, as we have seen, does not imply inherent intelligence, 

 but is explicable as an innate law involving appropriate coor- 

 dination of the sensory, emotional, and motor functions, all of 

 which are intrinsically dependent on the organism. But intelli- 

 gence, as we have seen, is a superorganic power, having its 

 source in a spiritual principle, that, from the very nature of 

 things, cannot be evolved from matter. Human reason, there- 

 fore, owes its origin, not to any evolution of the human body, 

 but to the creation of the human soul, which is the source and 

 subject of that unique prerogative of man, namely: the power 

 of abstract thought. 



