434 Animal Life and Intelligence. 



ful inferences, and his lucid and often luminous expo- 

 sition. 



I do not propose to go over the ground so exhaustively 

 covered by Mr. Romanes in his discussion of instinct. I 

 shall first endeavour shortly to set forth his conclusions, 

 and then review the suhject in the light of modern views of 

 heredity. 



Admitting that some instincts may have arisen from 

 the growth, extension, and co-ordination of reflex actions, 

 Mr. Romanes regards the majority of instincts as of two- 

 fold origin first, from the natural selection of fortuitous 

 unintelligent activities which chanced to be profitable to 

 the agent (primary instincts) ; and, secondly, from the 

 inheritance of habitual activities intelligently acquired. 

 These are the secondary instincts, comprising activities 

 which have become instinctive through lapsed intelligence. 

 In illustration of primary instincts, Mr. Romanes cites the 

 instinct of incubation. "It is quite impossible," he says,* 

 "that any animal can ever have kept its eggs warm with 

 the intelligent purpose of hatching out their contents, so 

 that we can only suppose that the incubating instinct began 

 by warm-blooded animals showing that kind of attention to 

 their eggs which we find to be frequently shown by cold- 

 blooded animals. . . . Those individuals which most con- 

 stantly cuddled or brooded over their eggs would, other 

 things equal, have been most successful in rearing progeny ; 

 and so the incubating instinct would be developed without 

 there ever having been any intelligence in the matter." 



Many of the instincts which exhibit what I have termed 

 above "blind prevision" must, it would seem, belong 

 completely or in the main to this class. The instincts of 

 female insects, which lead them to anticipate by blind 

 prevision the wants of offspring they will never see ; the 

 instincts of the caterpillars, which lead them to make pro- 

 vision for the chrysalis or imago condition of which they 

 can have no experience ; the instinct of a copepod 

 crustacean, which lays its eggs in a brittle-star, that they 



* "Mental Evolution in Animals," p. 177. 



