THE DARWINIAN THEORY OF INSTINCT. 601 



gence that if they stung them in one particular place, as between 

 certain segments on the lower side, their prey was at once paralyzed. 

 It does not seem to me at all incredible that this action should then 

 become instinctive, i. e., memory transmitted from one generation to 

 another. It does not seem necessary to suppose that, when Pompilius 

 stung its prey in the ganglion, it intended, or knew, that the prey 

 would keep long alive. The development of the larvae may have been 

 subsequently modified in relation to their half-dead, instead of wholly 

 dead, prey ; supposing that the prey was at first quite killed, which would 

 have required much stinging. Turn over this in your mind, etc." 



I confess that this explanation does not appear to me altogether 

 satisfactory, although it is no doubt the best explanation that can be 

 furnished on the lines of Mr. Darwin's theory. 



In the brief time at my disposal, I have endeavored to give an out- 

 line sketch of the main features of the evidence which tends to show 

 that animal instincts have been slowly evolved under the influence of 

 natural causes, the discovery of which we owe to the genius of Dar- 

 win. And, following the example which he has set, I shall conclude 

 by briefly glancing at a topic of wider interest and more general im- 

 portance. The great chapter on instinct, in the " Origin of Species," 

 is brought to a close in the following words : 



" Finally, it may not be a logical deduction, but to my imagination 

 it is far more satisfactory to look at such instincts as the young cuckoo 

 ejecting its foster-brothers, ants making slaves, the larvae of ichneu- 

 monidae feeding within the live bodies of caterpillars, not as specially 

 endowed or created instincts, but as small consequences of one general 

 law leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multi- 

 ply, vary, let the strongest live, and the weakest die." 



This law may seem to some, as it has seemed to me, a hard one — 

 hard, I mean, as an answer to the question which most of us must at 

 some time, and in some shape, have had faith enough to ask, " Shall 

 not the Judge of all the earth do right ? " For this is a law, rigorous 

 and universal, that the race shall always be to the swift, the battle 

 without fail to the strong ; and in announcing it the voice of Science 

 has proclaimed a strangely new beatitude — Blessed are the fit, for 

 they shall inherit the earth. Surely these are hard sayings, for in the 

 order of Nature they constitute might the only right. But, if we are 

 thus led to feel a sort of moral repugnance to Darwinian teaching, let 

 us conclude by looking at this matter a little more closely, and in the 

 light that Darwin himself has flashed upon it in the short passage 

 which I have quoted. 



Eighteen centuries before the publication of this book — the " Ori- 

 gin of Species " — one of the founders of Christianity had said, in words 

 as strong as any that have been used by the Schopenhauers and Hart- 

 manns of to-day, ''The whole creation groaneth in pain and travail." 

 Therefore we did not need a Darwin to show us this terrible truth ; 



