MEMORY AND ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 115 



them that after the accustomed taste of milk has become well 

 fastened in the memory by several successive acts of sucking-, 

 the child when a few days old is able to distinguish a change 

 of milk. Similarly, I find among Mr. Darwin's MSS the 

 following note : — 



" It is asserted (by Sir B. Brodie) that if a calf or infant 

 has never been suckled by its mother, it is very much easier 

 to bring it up by hand than if it has sucked only once. So 

 again, Kirby and Spence state (from Eeaumur, ' Entomology,' 

 vol. i, p. 391) that larv?e after having ' fed for a time on one 

 plant will die rather than eat another, which would have 

 been perfectly acceptable to them if accustomed to it from 

 tlie first.' " 



It will be observed that in dealing with these stages of 

 memory in very young infants, where as yet no association of 

 ideas can either be supposed to be present or is needed to 

 explain the facts, we at once encounter the question whether 

 the memory is to be considered as really due to individual 

 experience, or as an hereditary endowment, i.e., an instinct. 

 And here it becomes apposite to refer to the old and highly 

 interesting experiment of Galen, which definitely answers 

 this question with reference to animals. For soon after its 

 birth, and before it had ever sucked, Galen took a kid and 

 placed before it a row of similar basins, filled respectively 

 with milk, wine, oil, honey, and flour. The kid, after examin- 

 ing the basins by smell, selected the one which was filled 

 with milk. This unquestionably proves the fact of hereditary 

 memory, or instinct, in the case of the kid ; and therefore it 

 is probable that the same, at all events in part, applies to the 

 case of the child. In proof of which I may allude to the 

 experiments of Professor Kuszmaul, who found that even 

 prior to individual experience derived from sucking milk, 

 newly-born children show a preference for sweet tastes over 

 all others. For, on their tongues being wetted with sugar or 

 salt solutions, vinegar, quinine, &c., the new-born infants 

 made all manner of grimaces, being pleased with the sugar 

 solution, but with the others showing displeasure by a " sour 

 face," a " bitter face," and so on. 



But although we freely admit that the memory of milk is. 

 at all events in large part, hereditary, it is none the less 

 memory of a kind, and occurs without the association of ideas. 

 In other words, hereditary memory, or instinct, belongs to 



H 2 



