INSTINCTS PRIOR TO EXPERIENCE 165 



the sole perfect insect upon the young comb (the queen- 

 mother having been previously killed) immediately seize 

 upon the broken material of the comb and begin accurately 

 and with exact precision to build up the thin and delicate 

 sides of injured cells containing the living larvae '.^ 



The strongest of all arguments against Lamarckian 

 evolution was advanced nearly fifty years ago by Darwin 

 in the first edition of the Origin of Species \ and here too 

 we see that demonstrative evidence was supplied to the 

 greatest of all naturalists by reflection upon the insect 

 world, and of the part of it which we are now considering. 

 ' No amount of exercise, or habit, or volition,' he says, 

 speaking of ants, ' in the utterly sterile members of a 

 community could possibly have affected the structure 

 or instincts of the fertile members, which alone leave 

 descendants. I am surprised that no one has advanced 

 this demonstrative case of neuter insects against the well- 

 known doctrine of Lamarck.'^ 



It is indeed surprising that Darwin himself, after his 

 own crushing argument against the hypothesis of evolution 

 by inherited experience, should have been willing to admit 

 some tincture of the same principle in other parts of the 

 wide field. If we are perforce thrown upon unaided 

 Natural Selection for the origin and growth of the most 

 complex and specialized societies of the Hymenoptera, 

 what need have we for co-operating causes of evolution 

 elsewhere ? 



I conclude this section of my Address dealing with the 

 most remarkable of all nerve-mechanisms of instinct known 

 to us, with the following impressive comparison, made by 

 Professor Lankester, after contemplating the higher forms 

 in which instincts have been replaced by the power of 

 educability : — 'The character which we describe as "educa- 

 bility" can be transmitted; it is a congenital character. 

 But the restdts of education can not be transmitted. In 

 each generation they have to be acquired afresh. With 

 increased '* educability " they are more readily acquired 

 and a larger variety of them. On the other hand, the 



^ Nature, vol. Ixv, 1901, p. 50. 



'"^ The Origin 0/ Species, London, 1859, p. 242. 



