Organic Nature s Riddle 339 



was the acceptance of such a mechanical hypothesis as long 

 as any belief remained in the existence, in individual 

 animals, of an innate and mysterious instinctive power 

 directing their actions in ways beneficial to them or to 

 their race, yet unintended and unforeseen by the creatures 

 which performed those actions. A denial of the existence 

 of any true ' instinct,' as well as of any ujimechanical action 

 in specific evolution, was then necessary for the maintenance 

 of the mechanical theory, and accordingly such denials have 

 been confidently made, as we have already seen. 



While, however, this current of thought has been gaining 

 in volume and velocity, another contrary current has no less 

 made itself manifest, and amongst its exponents Edward 

 Yon Hartmann^ is an eloquent advocate of the manifest 

 action of intelligence in nature, and of what may thus be 

 called an ' intellectual ' as opposed to a ' mechanical ' con- 

 ception of the universe. He lays much stress upon instinct, 

 and is as earnest in asserting its distinct existence and 

 nature as are the mechanicians in denying its existence. 



As was said at the beginning of the former article, the 

 great interest just now of the study of instinct, lies in its 

 bearings on the Darwinian hypothesis, or rather on the 

 philosophy therewith connected. Let us then proceed to 

 examine whether or not the analogies before pointed out 

 between instinct and other forms of vital activity can be 

 carried further. Let us especially examine whether the 

 consideration of instinct, in the widest sense of that term, 

 throws any glimmerings of light upon that most recondite 

 and still most mysterious process, the genesis of new species. 



We may be encouraged to hope that such a result is 

 )ssible from the words of one of those twin biologists who 

 m the same night put forth their independently-arrived-at 



^ In his work on The Unconscious, a translation of which has been lately 

 published by Messrs. Triibner & Co. 



