ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS. 195 



now to the more important case of animals, I shall give only 

 a few examples among almost any number tliat I could 

 quote. Thus, in Norway, the ponies are used without 

 bridles, and are trained to obey the voice ; as a consequence 

 a race-peculiarity has been established, for Andrew Knight 

 says " the horse breakers complain, and certainly with very 

 good reason, that it is impossible to give them what is called 

 a mouth; they are nevertheless exceedingly docile, and more 

 than ordinarily obedient, when they understand the commands 

 of their masters."* Again, Mr. Lawson Tait tells me that he 

 had a cat which was taught to beg for food like a terrier, so 

 that she developed the habit of assuming this posture — so 

 very unusual in a cat — whenever she desired to be fed. All 

 her kittens adopted the same habit under circumstances which 

 precluded the possibility of imitation; for they were given 

 away to friends very early in life, and greatly surprised their 

 new owners when, several weeks afterwards, they began 

 spontaneously to beg.f 



In order to show that the same principles apply to 

 animals in a state of nature, it will be enough to adduce the 

 one instance of hereditary wildness and tameness, for this 

 i Qstance affords evidence of the most conclusive kind. Wild- 

 ness or tameness simply means a certain group of ideas or 

 disposition, having the character of an instinct, so that we 

 may properly speak of a wild animal as " instinctively afraid " 

 of man or other enemy, and of a tame one as instinctively 

 the reverse. Indeed, one of the most typical and remarkable 

 illustrations of instinct that could be given is that of the in- 

 born dread of enemies, as exhibited, for instance, by chickens 

 at the sight of a hawk, by horses at the smell of a wolf, by 

 monkeys at the appearance of a snake, &c. Now, fortunately, 

 there is material for amply proving both that these instincts 

 may be lost by disuse, and, conversely, that they may be 

 acquired as instincts by the hereditary transmission of 

 ancestral experience. 



been alluded to, and I think observation will sliow that the same applies to 

 the sense of modesty. 



* Phil. Trans., 1839, p. 369. 



t Inasmuch as the action of "begging" is so unusual in the Cat, the 

 above case of its hereditarv transmission is more remarkable than the similar 

 cases which occur in the Dog ; see Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind. vol. i, 

 p. 229, and Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii, p. 150, and more especially a 

 case recorded by Mr. L. Hm-t, in Nature (Aug. 1, 1872) of a Skve terrier 



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