GOD IN NATURE 197 



and was then perpetuated as an inheritance. But, 

 like most of the other explanations of this school, this 

 quietly takes for granted what should be proved. 

 That instinct is hereditary is true ; but the question 

 is how it began, and to say simply that it did begin 

 at some time is to tell us nothing. From a scientific 

 point of view the invariable operation of any natural 

 law affords no evidence of any gradual or sudden 

 origin of it at some point of past time ; and when 

 such law is connected with a complex organism and 

 various other laws and processes of the external 

 world, the supposition of its slowly arising from 

 nothing through many generations of animals be 

 comes absurd in its inefficiency and complexity. 

 Instinct must have originated in a perfect condition, 

 and with the organism and its environment already 

 established. A consideration of any of the almost 

 countless modifications of instinct in the lower 

 animals would show this. I shall borrow a very 

 apposite one from the remarkable work of the Duke 

 of Argyll on the Unity of Nature, which deserves 

 careful study by everyone who values common-sense 

 views on the subject : 



On a secluded lake in one of the Hebrides I observed 

 a dun-diver, or female of the red-breasted merganser (Her- 

 gus serrator\ with her brood of young ducklings. On giving 

 chase in the boat, we soon found that the young, although 

 not above a fortnight old, had such extraordinary powers ol 

 swimming and diving that it was almost impossible t 

 ture them. The distance they went under water and the 



