214 LIFE AND HABIT. 



nambulism, and saying, that if somnambulism were per- 

 manent and innate, it would be impossible to distin- 

 guish it from instinct, he continues : 



" Hence it is less difficult than is generally supposed, 

 to conceive how intelligence may become instinct ; we 

 might even say that, leaving out of consideration the 

 character of innateness, to which we will return, we 

 have seen the metamorphosis take place. There can 

 tlien be no ground for making instinct a faculty apart, 

 sui generis, a phenomenon so mysterious, so strange, 

 that usually no other explanation of it is offered but 

 that of attributing it to the direct act of the Deity. 

 This whole mistake is the result of a defective psycho- 

 logy which makes no account of the unconscious activity 

 of the soul." 



We are tempted to add " and which also makes 

 no account of the bond fide character of the continued 

 personality of successive generations." 



" But we are so accustomed," he continues, " to con- 

 trast the characters of instinct with those of intelli- 

 gence to say that instinct is innate, invariable, auto- 

 matic, while intelligence is something acquired, variable, 

 spontaneous that it looks at first paradoxical to assert 

 that instinct and intelligence are identical. 



" It is said that instinct is innate. But if, on the 

 one hand, we bear in mind that many instincts are 

 acquired, and that, according to a theory hereafter to 

 be explained " (which theory, I frankly confess, I never 

 was able to get hold of), "all instincts are only here- 

 ditary habits " (italics mine) ; " if, on the other hand, 

 we observe that intelligence is in some sense held to be 



