1884.] 071 the Darwinian TJieory of Instinct. 145 



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 larvaB may have been 

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

 dead prey ; suj)posing that the prey was at first quite killed, which 

 would have required much stinging. Turn over this in your mind, &c." 



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 endeavoured to give an 

 outline sketch of the main features of the evidence which tends to 

 show that animal instincts have been slowly C3volved under the influ- 

 ence of natural causes, the discovery of which we owe to the genius 

 of Darwin. And, following the example which he has set, I shall 

 conclude by briefly glancing at a topic of wider interest and more 

 general importance. 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 

 ichneumonidse 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, multiply, 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 

 * Origin of Species ' — one of the founders of Christianity had said, 

 in words as strong as any that have been used by the Schopeuhauers 

 and Hartmanns of to-day, " the whole creation groaneth in pain and 

 travail." Therefore we did not need a Darwin to show us this terrible 

 truth ; but we did need a Darwin to show us that out of all the evil 

 which we see, at least so much of good as we have known has come ; 

 that if this is a world of pain and sorrow, hunger, strife, and death, at 

 least the sufiering has not been altogether profitless ; that whatever 

 may be " the far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves," 



Vol. XI. (No. 78.) l 



