CHAP. VII.] THE BEUTE. 235 



the former. Instinct is &quot; fatal,&quot; but Wind ; it does not know 

 it is compelled, nor see the necessity of its action. Reason is 

 fatal, but sees ; it does know it is compelled to draw out ex 

 plicitly in a conclusion the truth implicitly contained in given 

 premisses, and does see the necessity of intuitive truths, such 

 as the principle of identity. Moreover, if it can be affirmed 

 that &quot; Instinct &quot; is &quot; lapsed intelligence,&quot; then a conscious, 

 deliberative, discriminative faculty must once have been exer 

 cised by wasps, bees, and ants in all such actions as are now 

 instinctive, and these creatures must once have possessed a 

 rationality of which the course of ages has deprived them. 



Mr. Herbert Spencer s climax is still more curious, as, 

 according to him, &quot;Reason&quot; is a &quot;failure of Instinct&quot; an 

 &quot; imperfect adjustment.&quot; So with the increasing adjustment 

 of &quot; inner relations &quot; to &quot; outer relations,&quot; it must tend more 

 and more to disappear. But will and memory are also 

 represented by him as transient accompaniments of an in 

 complete state of such adjustment; and, according to Mr. 

 Spencer, &quot; feeling &quot; must also disappear, when the adjust 

 ment becomes perfect, along with memory and reason. The 

 highest mental condition then, according to this writer, 

 would be one in which volition, intelligence, memory, and 

 even feeling, have all disappeared in favour of a &quot; perfect 

 adjustment.&quot; In other words, the most highly-developed 

 human being would be an absolutely senseless and uncon 

 scious automaton. This is the &quot;higher&quot; and &quot;nobler&quot; goal 

 to which the countless pulsations of cosmic forces are sup 

 posed to be ultimately tending in their integrating and con 

 structive action ; the object to promote which our most 

 strenuous and self-denying efforts, and our most fervent 

 desires, may most worthily be directed. 



The views of Mr. Lewes and Mr. Spencer cannot be accepted 

 by us, if for no other reason than that they gratuitously de 

 mand us to admit, in bees and ants, faculties for the existence 

 of which there is no evidence, and without which all their 

 activities can be sufficiently explained. Quite another cause 

 than lapsed intelligence,&quot; or even &quot;lapsed sensible percep- 



