ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS. 193 



It remains to mention another class of acquired mental 

 habits, and one which is still more suggestive in relation to 

 instinct, inasmuch as the habits are purely mental, and not 

 associated with mechanically distinctive movements. Thus, 

 as Professor Alison remarks,* the sense of modesty in man is 

 not a true instinct, because it is neither innate nor is it ex- 

 hibited by all the members of the species — being, in fact, 

 only displayed by the civilized races. Yet, altliough merely 

 a taught habit of mind, among morally cultured persons it is 

 in strength and precision indistinguishable from a true 

 instinct. Similarly, though in a lesser degree, the influences ; 

 of refinement and good taste, operating upon the individual 

 from childhood, produce such a powerful and unremitting 

 influence, that the extreme nicety, spontaneity, and readiness 

 of adjustment to highly complex conditions which result are 

 recognized even in ordinary conversation as akin to the 

 promptings of instinct; for we commonly say that a man 

 has "the instincts of a gentleman," or that so and so is 

 "underbred." This latter term, however, introduces us to 

 the division of our subject which we have to consider under 

 the next heading — namely, the extent to which habits of 

 mind, intentionally or intelligently acquired by the individual, 

 may be transmitted to progeny. To this branch of oiu^ dis- 

 cussion, therefore, we shall now pass.f 



Accepting, then. Proposition VI as beyond dispute, we 

 have here to substantiate Proposition VII, viz.. That cmtomatic 7 

 actions and conscious habits may he inherited. 



Now we have already seen that this is certainly the case ' 



* Article " Instinct," Todd's Cijclo. of Anat., rol. iii, 1839. 



t Mr. Darwin's MS points ont that persons of weak intellect are very apt 

 to fall into habitual or automatic actions, and these, from not being performed 

 under the mandates of the will, are more nearly allied to reflex actions than 

 are properly voluntary or deliberate movements. This correlation is also to be 

 observed in animals, and the MS gives a case which Mr. Darwin observed of 

 an idiotic dog, whose instinct of turning round before lying down (a remnant, 

 probably, of the instinct of forming a bed in long grass) was so strongly 

 developed, or so little checked by intelligence, "that he has been counted to 

 turn round twenty times before lying down," 



This action of turning round may certainly be regarded as the survival 

 of a secondary instinct. Now secondary instincts are formed by a descent 

 from intelligent action, through habitual action, towards reflex action; there- 

 fore it is interesting that when, as in such a case as this, they are fully formed 

 as instincts, tliey are found to resemble automatic habits in showing most 

 unrestricted play when intelligence is enfeebled or idiotic. 



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