196 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION \ 



this way ; but we have no right to affirm this till we 

 have proved it, and we have no right even then to 

 affirm it of other and distinct lines of being, which 

 have gone on parallel with our hexactinellids for 

 indefinite times, and which the very fact of the per 

 sistence of the latter within their own cycle of cha 

 racters would tend to refer to independent origins. 



Such, in short, would be the bearing, not of 

 metaphysical arguments, but of the testimony of 

 facts as presented by the structures and history of 

 any group of the lower animals. 



5. The instincts of the lower animals imply a 

 higher intelligence. Instinct, on the theistic view of 

 nature, can be nothing less than a divine inspiration, 

 placing the animal in relations to other things and 

 processes of the most complex character, and which 

 it could not have designed itself. Further, instinct is 

 by its very nature a thing unimprovable. Like the 

 laws of nature, it operates invariably, and if diminished 

 or changed it would prove useless for its purpose. It 

 is not like human inventions, slowly perfected under 

 the influence of thought and imagination, and 

 laboriously taught by each generation to its suc 

 cessors. It is inherited by each generation in all its 

 perfection, and from the first goes directly to its end 

 as if it were a merely physical cause. 



The favourite explanation of instinct from the 

 side of agnostic evolution is that it originated in the 

 struggle for existence of some previous generation, 



