324 On Animal Instinct : in its Relation to the Mind of Man. 



leading to success, and the success again leading to more trying — both 

 together leading first to special faculty, then to confirmed habit, and 

 then, by hereditary transmission, to instinct " organized in the race." 

 Well, but even if this be true, was not the disposition of the proge- 

 nitors to make the first eflTorts in the direction of swimming and diving, 

 and were not the organs which enabled them to do so, as purely innate 

 as the perfected instinct and the perfected organs of the Dipper of to- 

 day ? Did there ever exist in any former period of the world what, so 

 far as I know, does certainly not exist now — any animal with disposi- 

 tions to enter on a new career, thought of and imagined for the first 

 time by itself, unconnected with any organs already fitted for and 

 appropriate to the purpose? Even the highest acquirements of the 

 Dog, under highly artificial conditions of existence, and under the 

 guidance of persistent " interferences with nature," are nothing but 

 the special education of original instincts. In the almost human 

 caution of the old and well-trained pointer when approaching game, 

 we see simply a development of the habit of all predatory animals to 

 pause when close upon an unseen prey — a pause requisite to verify the 

 intimations of smell by the sense of sight, and also for preparing the 

 final spring. It is true that man "selects;" but he can only select 

 out of what is already there. The training and direction which he 

 gives to the promptings of instinct may properly be described as the 

 result of experience in the animal under instruction; and it is 

 undoubtedly true, that within certain limits (which, however, are after 

 all very narrow) these results do tend to become hereditary. But 

 there is nothing really analogous in nature to the artificial processes of 

 training to which Man subjects the animals which are capable of 

 domestication. Or if there be anything analogous — if animals by 

 themselves can school themselves by gradual eftbrt into the deveTop- 

 ment of new powers — if the habits and powers which are now purely 

 innate and instinctive, were once less innate and more deliberate — 

 then it will follow that the earlier faculties of animals have been the 

 higher, and the latter faculties are the lower in the scale of intelligence. 

 This is hardly consistent with the idea of evolution, — which is founded 

 on the conception of an unfolding or development from the lower to 

 the higher, from the simple to the complex, from the instinctive to 

 the rational. My own belief is, that whatever of truth there is in the 

 doctrine of evolution is to be found in this conception, which so far as 

 we can see, does seem to be embodied in the history of organic life. 

 I can there therefore see no light in this new explanation to account 

 for the existence of instincts which are centainly antecedent to all 

 individual experience — the explanation, namely, that they arc due to 



