72 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



if such brain-structures and mechanisms acquired through exercise 

 in the individual life could be transmitted, new instincts would 

 certainly arise in this way, and many naturalists hold this view still. 



If the inheritance of acquired characters had already been proved 

 in other ways, we could not refuse to admit that it might play a part 

 in the higher animals in the modification and new formation of 

 instincts. We should then have to admit that habits can be 

 inherited, and that instincts actually are or may be, as they have 

 often been said to be, inherited habits. But to make the converse 

 conclusion, and to infer from the result of the brain-exercise in 

 the individual life and its similarity to inborn instincts that the 

 latter also depend on inherited exercise, and that there must therefore 

 be inheritance of acquired characters, is hardly admissible. 



It might be all very well if there were no other explanation ! 

 But as instincts depend on material brain-mechanisms which are 

 variable, like every other part of the body, and as, furthermore, 

 they are essential to the existence of the species, and, down to the 

 minutest detail, are adapted to the circumstances of life, there is 

 no obstacle in the way of referring their origin and transformation 

 to processes of selection. 



It has been asserted that the results of training, for instance 

 in dogs, can be inherited, since the untaught young pointer points 

 at the game, and the young sheep-dog runs round and barks at 

 the flock of sheep without biting them. It is, however, often for- 

 gotten that, not only have these breeds arisen under the influence 

 of artificial selection by Man, but that they are even now strictly 

 selected. My colleague and friend, Dr. Otto vom Rath, who unhappily 

 died all too soon for Science, and who was not only a capable investi- 

 gator, but an experienced sportsman, told me that huntsmen distinguish 

 very carefully between the better and the inferior young in a litter, 

 and that by no means every whelp of a pair of pointers can be used 

 for hunting game-birds. Lloyd Morgan points out the same thing, 

 and he is undoiibtedly a competent judge in the domain of instinct ; 

 he confirms the statement that the pointer ' often points at the 

 quarry, it may be a lark's nest, without instruction,' but he says 

 at the same time, that the power is inborn in very varying degrees, 

 and that, in his opinion, selection undoubtedly plays a part. 



It must not, therefore, be believed that the habit of the pointer 

 depends on training; it is only strengthened in each individual by 

 training, but it depends on an innate predisposition to creep up to 

 the game, and is thus a form of the hunting instinct. Man has taken 

 advantage of this, and has increased it, but has certainly not ingrafted 



