190 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



same kind, bom in a state of nature. 1 If experience, 

 and purpose, and knowledge of the relation of means 

 to ends, are to be taken as functions characteristic of 

 mind, it follows that actions from which all these are 

 absent cannot be attributed to mental power. This 

 is the ground on which actions are referred to instinct, 

 and to this view there must be rigid adherence if we 

 are to have scientific exactness. There is little hope 

 of reliable advance in the inquiry as to animal in 

 telligence, if it be not recognised that Instinct stands 

 in contrast with Intellect. 2 The entire chapter on 

 Instinct in Darwin s Origin of Species must be read 

 in altered form, consequent upon deletion of the 

 references to mental faculties. After this has been 

 done, the facts remain available, as before. They are 

 data on which fresh induction may proceed; but 

 theoretic interpretations, held to be tributary to a 

 scheme of the evolution of animal intelligence, are to 

 be discarded. Acquisition of knowledge is not within 

 the province of instinct. No one speaks of instinctive 

 knowledge. Examples of instinct invariably pre 

 sent phases of action : and the actions recorded are 

 such as are not explained by practice, by acquisition 

 of knowledge, or by subjection to training. It is the 



1 Origin of Species, p. 195. 



2 How much of uncertainty as to the method of treatment clings 

 to all our discussions regarding Instinct may be seen by reference 

 to the discussions of biologists and of psychologists. Compare 

 the following: Darwin s Ori/jin of Species, ch. viii., Wallace s 

 Darwinism, p. 441. Weismann s Essays on Heredity, with reference 

 to reflex mechanisms. Romanes s Animal Intelligence, pp. 10-17, 

 and Mental Evolution in Animals, chaps, xi. and xii. Lloyd Morgan s 

 Animal Life and Intelligence, p. 422. Herbert Spencer s Psychology, 

 Part iv. chap. v. Sully s Psychology, p. 481. James s Text-Book 

 of Psychology, ch. xxv. 



