The Modern Theory of Instinct 



the sting must be directed; for, if they were 

 still in the prentice stage, if they and their 

 successors had to risk the chance that acci- 

 dent would tend gradually to strengthen the 

 nascent impulse, they would be going back to 

 the likelihood so near allied to nil; they 

 would go back to it year by year, for centuries 

 to come; and yet the one and only fa- 

 vourable chance would have to be always re- 

 curring. I find it very difficult to believe in 

 a habit acquired by this prolonged repetition 

 of incidents whereof not one can take place 

 without excluding so many contrary chances. 

 It is a simple matter of arithmetic to show 

 the number of absurdities against which the 

 theorists rush headlong. 



Nor is this all. We should have to ask 

 ourselves how casual actions, to which the 

 insect was not predisposed by nature, can be- 

 come the source of an hereditary transmis- 

 sible habit. We should look upon a man as 

 a sorry wag who came to us and said that 

 the descendant of the desnucador knows the 

 art of slaughtering cattle from A to Z merely 

 through being the son of his father, without 

 the aid of precept or example. The father 

 does not use his blade just once or twice, by 

 accident; he operates every day and scores 

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