Auk 
Jan. 
88 feecent Literature. 
former chief advocates, who have come to adopt the view that instinct is 
a product of evolution. We have not space to go over the evidence at 
length, but would commend to those interested Prof. Whitman’s able 
exposition of the subject. From his summary of the subject, we quote 
somewhat at length. Under the heading ‘A Few General Statements’ 
(pp- 328-331), he says: 
‘*r. Instinct and structure are to be studied from the common stand- 
point of phyletic descent. ...Instincts are evolved rather than involved 
(stereotyped by repetition and transmission ), and the key to their genetic 
history is to be sought in their more general rather than in their later 
and incidental uses. 
‘‘2. The primary roots of instincts reach back to the constitutional 
properties of protoplasm, and their evolution runs, in general, parallel 
with organogeny. As the genesis of organs takes its departure from the 
elementary structure of protoplasm, so does the genesis of instincts pro- 
ceed from the fundamental functions of protoplasm. Primordial organs 
and instincts are alike few in number and generally persistent... . 
‘*3. Remembering that structural bases are relatively few and per- 
manent as compared with external morphological characters, we can 
readily understand why, for example, five hundred different species of 
wild pigeons should all have a few common unditterentiated instincts, 
such as drinking without raising the head, the cock’s time of incubating 
from about 10 A.M. to about 4 P.M., etc... . 
“5. Instinct precedes intelligence both in ontogeny and phylogeny, 
and it has furnished all the structural foundations employed by intelli- 
gence. In social development also instinct predominates in the earlier, 
intelligence in the later stages. 
“6. Since instinct supplied at least the earlier rudiments of brain and 
nerve, since instinct and mind work with the same mechanisms and in 
the same channels, and since instinctive action is »radually superceded 
by intelligent action, we are compelled to regard instinct as the actual 
germ of mind. 
‘7, The automatism, into which habit and intelligence may lapse, 
seems explicable, in a general way, as due more to the preorganization 
of instinct than to mechanical repetition.... Habits appear as the uses 
of instinct organization which have been learned by experience.... 
‘‘g, We are apt to contrast the extremes of instinct and intelligence — 
to emphasize the blindness and inflexibility of the one with the con- 
sciousness of the other. It is like contrasting the extremes of light and 
dark and forgetting all the transitional degrees of twilight... . Instinct 
is blind, so is the highest human wisdom blind. The distinction is one 
OPGCOTEGs ert. 
Prof. Whitman’s experiments with various species of Pigeons, which 
he has made the subject of special investigation in this connection, are 
of the highest interest and we regret lack of space prevents our summa- 
rizing them in the present review. —J. A. A. 
