The Metaphysics of Darwinism. 105 



with the fortuity which it seems to imply. We 

 need not question that modifications of instincts, 

 as of organs, may be advantageous ; or that, having 

 occurred, they will tend to perpetuate themselves 

 on an arena where the race is to the swift and the 

 battle to the strong. And we may even concede 

 as possible Lamarck s identification of instinct 

 with hereditary habit, and Darwin s derivation 

 of such habit from the repetition of serviceable 

 actions insured through natural selection. But 

 on two points more light is indispensable. In the 

 first place, do such variations of instinct as the 

 hypothesis supposes actually occur ? Experiment 

 has shown that the habits of bees may be changed ; 

 but has it shown that this flexibility is inconsist 

 ent with the doctrine of fixed instincts? To 

 regard the gradations of instinct as so many 

 stages in the modification of it is to take for 

 granted the very question at issue. Then, in the 

 second place, if the variability is granted, by what 

 right is it made fortuitous ? When Darwin tells 

 us that instincts have been acquired from habits 

 and actions &quot; which at first appeared from what 

 we must in our ignorance call an accident,&quot; his 

 language is unhappy and, indeed, unwarranted, 

 for he is only giving expression to the doctrine 

 with which our study of variations has made us 



