260 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS. 



perly be regarded as a case of instinct. But as it occurs in 

 an animal so low in the scale as a jelly-fish, we are not 

 warranted in assuming the presence of an intelligent percep- 

 tion of the process, and therefore in my view we must classify 

 the case, not as one of instinct, but as one of reflex action, 

 which, like all other cases of complex reflex action, has 

 probably been developed by natural selection. But it would 

 follow from Mr. Spencer's view that the case must be classified 

 as one of instinct, and therefore as presenting no point of 

 psychological distinction from that of giving suck in the case 

 of a mammal. Surely it is a more philosophical mode of 

 constructing a psychological classification, to acknowledge the 

 great distinction which the presence of a psychical element 

 makes between two such cases as these ; and, if so, the dis- 

 tinction stated in its simplest terms is the one which I have 

 already stated — viz., that while the stimulus to a reflex action 

 is at most a sensation, the stimulus to an instinctive action 

 can only be a perception. 



In my opinion, then, Mr. Spencer's theory of the forma- 

 tion of instincts is seriously at fault in that it fails to distin- 

 guish the most essential feature of instinct ; moreover it does 

 not recognize the important principle of the lapsing of intelli- 

 gence, and thus fails to account for the very existence of that 

 whole class of instincts which I have called secondary. Next 

 I have to show that this theory is further defective in that it 

 fails to recognize sufficiently the other and no less important 

 principle of natural selection, and so in large measure fails 

 to account for the existence of that whole class of instincts 

 which I have called primary. Thus, he says expressly with 

 reference to instinct, " while holding survival of the fittest to 

 be always a co-operating cause, I believe that in cases like 

 these it is not the chief cause."* Now it so happens that the 

 " cases " of which he is speaking are those of the artificial 

 instincts of pointers, retrievers, and other domestic animals ; 

 hence by " survival of the fittest," we must understand 

 artificial selection (which is here the analogue of natural 

 selection among wild animals), and therefore the remark 

 happens to be particularly unfortunate in the connection in 

 which it occurs, seeing it is perfectly certain that but for the 

 most careful and continued selection by man, our pointers 

 and retrievers would never have come into existence. But 



* Frinciples of raycholoc/g, j, p. 423. 



