Habit and Instinct. 429 



capacity and instinct. Every animal comes into the world 

 with an innate capacity to perform the activities which 

 have been necessary for the maintenance of the normal 

 existence of its ancestors. This is part of its inherited 

 organization. Only when these activities are performed at 

 the bidding of impulse, through no instruction and from 

 no tendency to imitation, can they, strictly speaking, be 

 termed instinctive. The more uniform the conditions of 

 ancestral life, and the more highly developed the organism 

 when it enters upon the scene of active existence, the more 

 likely are the innate capacities to manifest themselves at 

 once and without training as perfect instincts. Among 

 birds, the proecoces, which reach a high state of develop- 

 ment within the egg, and among insects, those which 

 undergo complete metamorphosis, and emerge from the 

 pupa or chrysalis condition fully formed and fully equipped 

 for life, display the greatest tendency to exhibit activities 

 which are truly and perfectly instinctive. But man, whose 

 ancestors have lived and worked under such complex con- 

 ditions, and who comes into the world in so helpless and 

 immature a state, though his innate capacities are 

 enormous, exhibits but few and rudimentary instincts. 



One marked characteristic of many of the habits and 

 instincts of the lower animals is the large amount of blind 

 prevision (if one may be allowed the expression) which 

 they display. By blind prevision I mean that preparation 

 for the future which, if performed through intelligence or 

 reason, we should term " foresight," but which, since it is 

 performed prior to any individual experience of the results, 

 is done, we must suppose, in blind obedience to the internal 

 impulse. The sphex, a kind of wasp-like insect, forms a 

 little mud chamber in which she lays her eggs. She goes 

 forth, finds a spider, stings it in such a way that it is 

 paralyzed but not killed, and places it in the chamber for 

 her unborn young, which she will never see. The hen 

 incubates her eggs, though she may never have seen a 

 chicken in her life. The caterpillars of an African moth 

 weave a collective cocoon as large as a melon. All unite 



