DARWIN', AATD THE ORIGIN- OF SPECIES . 20/ 



iterpillars in only these nine intensely localized spots. Finally, 

 1 the case of our species, it is self-evident," says Romanes, " that 

 le aesthetic, moral, and religious instincts admit of a natural and 

 asy explanation on the hypothesis of use-inheritance, while such 

 ; by no means the case if that hypothesis be rejected." 



No phenomena in the whole realm of nature are more difficult 

 3 handle than those Romanes here refers to. Many, no doubt, 

 hink, with him, that they are inexplicable by natural selection, 

 Ithough few among those who, so far, think as he does, seem 

 kely to find satisfaction in that view of morality and religion 

 vhich attributes these things to the inheritance of the effects of 

 Lse. 



We have already asked, page 66, what evidence there is that 

 unction ever does produce structure, either in the race or in the 

 ndividual ; and we have seen that when organs are improved by 

 lormal use, structures for bringing this useful end about already 

 ,xist. Capacity for improvement by practice is itself an adapta- 

 ion which calls for explanation, rather than an explanation or 

 j.cause of adaptation. 



I The .opinion that deliberate acts, habits, instincts, and reflex 

 •acts form a descending series, in which each lower manifestation 

 has, at some time in the past, climbed down from the top of the 

 ladder seems to commend itself to many. For this reason I have 

 quoted Romanes's recent statement at some length, although no 

 one can, with logical consistency, find, in this opinion, even if it 

 be well founded, any help in accounting for the origin of 

 instincts, or that of reflex acts, if deliberate acts are themselves 

 mechanical and dependent upon the presence of adaptive structure. 

 If practice does no more than to correct responsive actions 

 and to reduce them to exactness by the repression of those that 

 are vague and indefinite and by the preservation of those that 

 are exact and definite, how can it add anything to the nature of 

 organisms } Romanes not only considers it . proved that delib- 

 erate acts are mechanical, but he also holds that the only way 

 to escape what he regards as the materialistic consequences of 

 this conviction is to be found in the monistic creed that " the 

 antithesis between mind and motion — subject and object — is 

 itself phenomenal or apparent; not absolute or real." "We have 



