290 Darwin, and after Darwin. 



I cannot wait to give any lengthy quotations from 

 this representative exponent of scientific opinion upon 

 the subject at that time ; but its general drift may be 

 appreciated if I transcribe merely the short concluding 

 paragraph, wherein he sums up his general results. 

 Here he says : 



It thus only remains for us to regard instinct as a mental 

 faculty, sui generis, the gift of God to the lower animals, that 

 man in his own person, and by them, might be relieved from the 

 meanest drudgery of nature. 



Now, here we have the most extraordinary illus- 

 tration that is imaginable of the obscuring influence 

 of a preconceived idea. Because he started with the 

 belief that instincts must have been implanted in 

 animals for the benefit of man, this writer, even when 

 writing a purely scientific essay, was completely 

 blinded to the largest, the most obvious, and the most 

 important of the facts which the phenomena of instinct 

 display. For, as a matter of fact, among all the many 

 thousands of instincts which are known to occur in 

 animals, there is no single one that can be pointed to 

 as having any special reference to man ; while, on the 

 other hand, it is equally impossible to point to one 

 which does not refer to the welfare of the animal 

 presenting it. Indeed, when the point is suggested, 

 it seems to me surprising how few in number are the 

 instincts of animals which have proved to be so much 

 as of secondary or accidental benefit to man, in the 

 same way as skins, furs, and a whole host of other 

 animal products are thus of secondary use to him. 

 Therefore, this writer not only failed to perceive the 

 most obvious truth that every instinct, without any 

 single exception, has reference to the animal which 



