228 Kansas Academy of Science. 



la investigating the origin of instincts, I have been involved in 

 these two problems and have been forced to propose a solution which 

 is more or less in accord with the beliefs of the Neo-Lamarckians. 

 My conclusions constitute the body of this paper. 



THE THESIS. 



Life on earth has been endowed from the beginning with at 

 least seven powers or modes of activity. Three are concerned in 

 nutrition and respiration, one enables life to reproduce its kind 

 and multiply individuals, and the remaining three powers enable 

 life to adjust itself to its environment, the last of these three being 

 the power which makes it possible for life to do its work better to- 

 morrow than it has done it to-day. 



Life, in exercising this, its seventh power, or form of activity, 

 did pU its work consciously on the first day of its existence on 

 earth, then, after some millions of years of earth experience, it did 

 some of its work consciously, some habitually, and some reflex- 

 ively and instinctively, all of which, the habitual, the reflexive, 

 and the instinctive, had before been done consciously. Thus life 

 makes provision through consciousness and the development of 

 its reflexes and instincts for better and different adjustments to 

 its environment, and in doing so may evolve higher and still higher 

 types of organisms in the succeeding generations. 



This fixation of conscious forms of activity, first as individual 

 habits, then as race habits, or instincts and reflexes, and the growth 

 or development of instincts and reflexes through conscious pioneer 

 work, explains variation and heredity, the two hitherto unsolved 

 problems of development, and therefore completes the establish, 

 ment of the doctrine of plant and animal evolution. The at- 

 tempted explanation by Weismann of heredity and variation by 

 means of a hypothetical germ plasm consisting of biophors and 

 determinants is entirely unsupported by observation, and assigns 

 to matter qualities not dreamed of by any chemist or physicist 

 while studying this entity. Life alone manifests the tendencies 

 assigned to matter by Weismann. By substituting "life" for 

 "germ plasm" with its biophors and determinants, the chief ob- 

 jections to his hypothesis are removed. Weismann admits that 

 this substitution may properly be made, though he naturally pre- 

 fers his germ plasm as the variant and bearer of hereditary qualities. 



THE ARGUMENT. 



Before considering the evidence in favor of the "life theory of 

 evolution," we should remember that the term "instinct" belongs 

 to biology, and refers to the power of life to do without present 



