326 DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. 



perience to enable us to perform, when performed by an 

 animal, more especially by a very young one, without ex- 

 perience, and when performed by many individuals in the 

 same way, without their knowing for what purpose it is 

 performed, is usually said to be instinctive. But I could 

 show that none of these characters are universal. A little 

 dose of judgment or reason, as Pierre Huber expresses it, 

 often comes into play, even with animals low in the scale 

 of nature. 



Pa<Te 206 If we suppose any habitual action to be- 



come inherited — and it can be shown that this 

 does sometimes happen — then the resemblance between 

 what originally was a habit and an instinct becomes so 

 close as not to be distinguished. If Mozart, instead of 

 playing the piano-forte at three years old with wonder- 

 fully little practice, had played a tune with no practice at 

 all, he might truly be said to have done so instinctively. 

 But it would be a serious error to suppose that the greater 

 number of instincts have been acquired by habit in one 

 generation, and then transmitted by inheritance to suc- 

 ceeding generations. It can be clearly shown that the 

 most wonderful instincts with which we are acquainted, 

 namely, those of the hive-bee and of many ants, could not 

 possibly have been acquired by habit. 



Pao-e 208 ^^y, it has been asked, if instinct be vari- 



able, has it not granted to the bee " the abil- 

 ity to use some other material when wax was deficient " ? 

 But what other natural material could bees use ? They 

 will work, as I have seen, with wax hardened with vermil- 

 ion or softened with lard. Andrew Knight observed that 

 his bees, instead of laboriously collecting propolis, used a 

 cement of wax and turpentine, with which he had cov- 



