66 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



not to describe authoritatively the attributes of a fixed class of 

 facts. Practically it seemed worth while to bring out this con- 

 tinuity in the definition. 



This rather tiresome explanation serves an additional purpose 

 by introducing us to a real question — the question of the origin 

 of instincts. For some thinkers have cheerfully begged this 

 question, by defining instincts as inherited habits, and by study- 

 ing those unlearned abilities which looked like inherited habits, 

 out of connection with all other unlearned abilities. In his 

 lecture on "Animal Behavior" (Woods Holl Biological Lectures, 

 pp. 285-338, 1898) Prof. C. O. Whitman has, in opposition to 

 these thinkers, defended with great care and force the theory 

 that such unlearned abilities as the spider's web-spinning, 

 chick's scratching, dog's pointing, etc., — such activities, in 

 short, as have been discussed in this paper, — (1) have the same 

 origin as the unlearned activities of reflex action, digestion, 

 circulation, etc., (2) are due, in fact, to organic features, which 

 again (3) are due to germ variations, and that (4), therefore, we 

 should look for and expect to find, so far as traces have been 

 left for us to follow, as continuous a development of such activi- 

 ties, as true an evolution of " instincts " as of organs. 



All that I have to say about Professor Whitman's first two 

 contentions is that they seem to me so true that I cannot under- 

 stand any one's doubting them. As one runs through animals' 

 unlearned activities, from those most to those least like prod- 

 ucts of learning, he can nowhere stop and say, " hitherto inher- 

 ited habits, from hence chance variations." These first two 

 contentions would remain true whatever might happen to the 

 third. As to the third, I can only add my mite to the evidence. 

 The failure of chicks to avoid their own excrement and their 

 ability to swim seem hard to explain on Lamarckian principles. 

 For the avoidance of excrement must have been formed as a 

 habit in every individual for many generations, while the 

 swimming instinct has been unused for even more perhaps. 

 Again, the vagueness of response discovered the more we study 

 animals' unlearned activities is just what one would expect if 

 these responses were due to germ changes selected by reason 

 of their success in procuring survival, while it is not what we 



