324 NATURAL SCIENCE. May, 



subsidiary hypothesis necessary. We must suppose that the physical 

 changes which the nervous elements undergo can be transmitted 

 from father to son . . . The assumption of the inheritance of 

 acquired dispositions or tendencies is inevitable if there is to be any 

 continuity of evolution at all. We may be in doubt as to the extent 

 of this inheritance : we cannot question the fact itself." 26 " Darwin's 

 explanation of the development of instinct as being mainly the result 

 of passive adaptation seems," says Professor Wundt, "to contradict 

 the facts." 2 ? Now the majority of writers on instinct distinguish it, 

 as we have seen, from individually-acquired habit. And it is hardly 

 necessary to state that Professor Wundt's explanation of the origin of 

 connate instincts on Lamarckian principles, is not accepted by 

 Professor Weismann and his school. " I believe," says Professor 

 Weismann, 28 " that this is an entirely erroneous view, and I hold that 

 all instinct is entirely due to the operation of Natural Selection, and 

 has its foundation, not upon inherited experiences, but upon variation 

 of the germ." In view of the biological controversy as to the in- 

 heritance of acquired characters, it would seem advisable so to define 

 instinct as not in any way to prejudge the question of origin. 



5. The Instincts of Man. — "The fewness and the comparative 

 simplicity of the instincts of the higher animals," said Darwin, 2 9 " are 

 remarkable in contrast with those of the lower animals." Romanes 30 

 held that " instinct plays a larger part in the psychology of many 

 animals than it does in the psychology of man." " Recent research," 

 says Professor Sully, 31 " goes to show that though instinctive move- 

 ment plays a smaller part in the life of the child than in that of the 

 young animal, it is larger than has been generally supposed." Pro- 

 fessor Preyer 32 tells us that " the instinctive movements of human 

 beings are not numerous, and are difficult to recognise (with the 

 exception of the sexual ones) when once the earliest youth is past." 



On the other hand, Professor Wundt 33 regards human life as "per- 

 meated through and through with instinctive action, determined in 

 part, however, by intelligence and volition." And Professor James 

 tells us 3 + that "man possesses all the impulses that they (the lower 

 creatures) have, and a great many more besides." The higher 

 animals have a number of impulses, such as greediness and suspicion, 

 curiosity and timidity, all of them "congenital, blind at first, and 

 productive of motor reactions of a rigorously determinate sort. Each 

 of them, then, is an instinct, as instincts are commonly defined. But 

 they contradict each other — ' experience ' in each particular opportunity 

 of application usually deciding the issue. The animal that exhibits them 



20 Op. cit., p. 405. « Op. cit., p. 409. 



28 " Essays " (1S89), p. 91. 23 " Descent of Man," vol. i., p. 101. 



80 " Mental Evolution in Man," p. 8. 31 " The Human Mind," vol. ii., p. 186. 



32 " The Mind of the Child " : The Senses and the Will, p. 235. 



88 " Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology," p. 397. 



84 <■ principles of Psychology," vol. ii., pp. 392, 3. Italics the author's. 



