( cxxiv ) 



formed the foundation of a gigantic speculative edifice. The 

 controversy has in reality been a three-sided one. 



I. First, we have Fabre disbelieving in evolution altogether, 

 and adducing evidence that his favourite insects have not 

 gained their wonderful instincts by progressive change; 

 pointing out that they perform their duties under some 

 stimulus which to them is imperative, whether the object of 

 their pains be achieved or not : arguing, for example, that in 

 those that feed their larvae from time to time, the stimulus 

 to enter and deposit the insect food is not the young larva 

 itself but the door of the tunnel. 



II. Secondly, Lord Avebury and the late George J. Komanes 

 have argued in favour of evolution by a gradual education, 

 finally inherited as instinct. There is reason to believe that 

 Darwin accepted the same view. He certainly never opposed 

 it. Lord Avebury alludes to the letter written to Fabre, in 

 which Darwin " refers to the great skill of the Gauchos in 

 killing cattle, and suggests that each young Gaucho sees how 

 others do it, and with a very little practice learns the art." * 



Lord Avebury identifies himself with this view, which, 

 indeed, he had himself set forth in the "Contemporary Review," 

 in 1885. Concerning the instinct of the Ammophila to sting 

 the ganglionic centres of its caterpillar prey, he suggests that 

 " during these long ages they may have gradually learnt the 

 spots where their sting would be most effective, and ... so 

 have gradually acquired their present habits." f He finally con- 

 cludes that "these remarkable instincts " are '^'the result of 

 innumerable repetitions of similar actions carried on by a long 

 series of ancestors." \ 



George J. Romanes in reviewing Lord Avebury's book goes 

 much further : — " Here, by the way, we have an excellent 

 instance of the difficulty which we so often encounter in 

 the domain of instinct, when we relinquish the so-called 

 Lamarckian principle of the inheritance of acquired characters. 

 The hypothesis in question goes upon the supposition that 



* Sir J. Lubbock, " On the senses, instincts, and intelligence of 



animals, with special reference to insects." London, 1888. Internat. 

 Sci. Ser., p. 248. 



t p. 248. X p. 252. 



