232 MENTAL FACULTIES sec. 



duck, for example, which, in places where it is protected, has 

 voluntarily domesticated itself, and every year comes from a 

 distance to take up its abode with man, doubtless avoids 

 other places which are dangerous to it. 



Those who seriously believe that mental powers are to 

 be explained by the accidental variations of the germ-plasm, 

 as those must who deny the heredity of acquired characters, 

 will of course estimate the mental powers of animals accord- 

 ing to the requirements of their belief, and may also describe 

 all those powers without distinction under any indifferent 

 name whatever. Instinct is such an indifferent name, when 

 the idea of instinct is not connected wdth the inheritance of 

 acquired characters. But all explanation, all comprehension 

 of the gradual modification and perfection, and of the nature 

 of mental faculties in general, is then excluded. 



I recognise the instinct of fear, i.e. fear acquired through 

 the experience of ancestors, and inherited. But the cases I 

 have already described show how easily this "instinct" in many 

 animals can be dispelled by experience, and give place to the 

 knowledge that they can have confidence in man. And, on 

 the other hand, my own observation shows how quickly their 

 confidence is converted into distrust by experience. Count- 

 less other facts prove that fear and confidence, trust and 

 distrust, in animals alternate in different cases according to 

 the circumstances. 



Some years ago a male chaffinch in my garden had become 

 so tame with me that he flew after me everywhere in order to 

 take the hemp seed and meal-worms which I offered him. 

 Wherever I went or stood in the garden the finch appeared 

 from the bushes, perched on the nearest branch or on the 

 ground in front of me, and with his powerful chirp — " Pink, 

 pink " — demanded his food. But if he had not noticed me, I 

 had only to whistle in imitation of his chirp and he appeared. 

 At last he used to come after me even into the house and 



