216 LIFE AND HABIT. 



tlieless, perfectly true, but only when we compare the 

 extremes. As instinct rises it approacJws intelligence — 

 as intelligence descends it approaches instinct! 1 



M. Eibot and myself (if I may venture to say so) 

 are continually on the verge of coming to an under- 

 standing, when, at the very moment that we seem most 

 likely to do so, we fly, as it were, to opposite poles. 

 Surely the passage last quoted should be, " As instinct 

 falls," i.e., becomes less and less certain of its ground, 

 "it approaches intelligence; as intelligence rises," i.e., 

 becomes more and more convinced of the truth and 

 expediency of its convictions — " it approaches instinct." 



Enough has been said to show that the opinions 

 which I am advancing are not new, but I have looked 

 in vain for the conclusions which, it appears to me, M. 

 Eibot should draw from his facts ; throughout his in- 

 teresting book I find the facts which it would seem 

 should have guided him to the conclusions, and some- 

 times almost the conclusions themselves, but he never 

 seems quite to have reached them, nor has he arranged 

 his facts so that others are likely to deduce them, 

 unless they had already arrived at them by another 

 road. I cannot, however, sufficiently express my obli- 

 gations to M. Ribot. 



I cannot refrain from bringing forward a few more 

 instances of what I think must be considered by every 

 reader as hereditary memory. Sydney Smith writes : — 



* Sir James Hall hatched some chickens in an oven. 

 Within a few minutes after the shell was broken, a 

 spider was turned loose before this very youthful 

 brood; the destroyer of flies had hardly proceeded 



